


the undoing and the reweaving

by tunemyart



Category: Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: F/F, don't be worried about the Caesar/Xena tag, ohhh man guys here we go, that's just for transparency, we all know what love story this show is actually telling, we're doing it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2020-05-15 18:57:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19301800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tunemyart/pseuds/tunemyart
Summary: After the play, after the reception, when most facades between them had dropped within the inner sanctum of their rooms and the familiarity of their marriage, her husband asked her, “Tell me, what did you and the playwright talk about?”When Fates Collide AU; diverges within the episode's timeline.





	1. Prologue

After the play, after the reception, when most facades between them had dropped within the inner sanctum of their rooms and the familiarity of their marriage, her husband asked her, “Tell me, what did you and the playwright talk about?”

 

When her mind was working more clearly and had come out from the influence of art that made her weep and a woman who spoke to her of love, Xena would reconsider his interest; but for the moment she was still unguarded, and she answered honestly.

 

“Her work," she said. "Her life. She interests me.”

 

“You seemed oddly taken with her."

 

“Hmm?" she asked, distracted. "The playwright?”

 

“Yes," he mimicked, suddenly appearing in front of her. "The playwright.”

 

Xena's immediate surroundings snapped into sharp focus, and she rearranged her face quickly into something more calculatedly nonchalant. “What of it?” she asked, only for Caesar to shrug with his own practiced nonchalance and prowl languidly behind her. Xena didn't turn to watch him, but her body registered his every movement, coiling with anticipation. 

 

“Just that I had meant the play tonight as a gift for you, but I’m worried it’s gone over a little too well.”

 

“Meaning?” 

 

“Did you even notice that you’re weren’t speaking Latin with her?” 

 

Xena hadn't in fact, but didn't see why that mattered when the entire Roman nobility spoke the Greek of the Athenians well enough to read philosophy and take in theatre, including that evening's entertainment, in Attic. “Why should I have? She’s Greek. At one point, so was I.”

 

“Leaving aside for the moment that you never claimed Greek heritage except for when it suited you, you weren’t speaking Attic, either.”

 

That news genuinely surprised her, but she tried not to let it show on her face even as she mentally ran through a list of languages left to them. The playwright was no Thracian, certainly; and while she was clearly educated and might speak any number of languages from abroad, Xena thought she’d notice a slip into anything that wasn’t as natural as breathing to her.

 

Which left one option, and Xena took a gamble on it. “Does it bother you so much what language we spoke?” she asked as she finally turned and casually removed her earrings. “Or does it only bother you that you couldn’t understand us?”

 

“It bothers me that the Empress of the Roman Empire is speaking at public functions in a backwater tongue of a nation she conquered decades ago,” he said. “Especially when she typically does everything in her power to have her citizens forget her own backwater origins.”

 

Xena smirked. “So it is that you couldn’t understand us.” She rose and patted his cheek on the way to her wardrobe. “Never fear, husband dear. When we compared notes about our men, I said only good things about you.”

 

“Xena, I’m deadly serious.”

 

“You are not,” she said dismissively. “I spent years being called your Thracian whore, a Macedonian interloper, a dirty Greek. Our people are as well aware of my origins as they are of my love of a good fight, and by this point I'd say they’ve gotten over both admirably. A few people hearing me speak a language they can’t immediately identify isn’t going to cause my image to plummet.”

 

“You’re being very cavalier for someone whose image has quite a great height to fall from,” Caesar remarked. “It only takes a whisper and a change in the wind. They know the playwright is Athenian, and they all speak Attic. They know that you weren’t speaking Attic. It could lead some to wonder just what the Empress has to discuss through a language they don’t understand.”

 

Xena stared at him, eyes narrowing. “If you’re accusing me of something, I think you should go ahead and do it.”

 

“Accusing you?”

 

"We've known each other too long for this," Xena said, even as the corners of her mouth curved into something that was never dormant inside her. "Let’s not play games with each other, shall we?”

 

“But games have served us so well up to this point,” Caesar said as he poured himself a cup of wine and regarded her cooly. “Why stop now?”

 

The air in the room had chilled considerably. She and her husband had always had a relationship that lay in some murky realm of political, adversarial, and at times intensely sexual, but she’d never sensed animosity from him in a way that concerned her before now. The fact that it was happening at all was baffling, but the fact that it was happening over an innocuous conversation she’d apparently had in the Macedonian dialect with a Greek playwright had her surprisingly off balance. She spared hardly a thought to the idea that he was genuinely suspicious of her loyalty to Rome.

 

“Why, Gaius,” she purred, stalking nearer to him. “Could it really be that you’re jealous?” She tsked, and let her hand ghost its way down his chest. “Such a petty emotion for the emperor of the world.”

 

“And just how is it that you remember me becoming emperor of the world,” he said - and there it was, that petulance, just under the iron of his voice. “I’m jealous of everything. And Xena?”

 

“Hmm?” She took the cup of wine from his hand and set it out of the way, unsurprised to find his eyes darkened and fixed on her as he reached back for her.

 

“My wife is no exception to that rule.”

 

What followed was almost disappointingly predictable, and after a while of laying awake and unsettled while Caesar slept unawares, Xena left their bed, slipping back into her robe and lazily plaiting her long hair out of the way. It was easy to steal into her own rooms through the adjoining door, and with a last glance toward her husband, who was still sleeping peacefully, she did. Something like affection at his unguadedness moved Xena’s heart, but not enough to keep her from noiselessly pulling the door open and slipping through it toward the peace and solitude that waited for her.

 

Once inside her own rooms, fresh air beckoned from her balcony, and she followed its call, breathing deep and slumping to rest her weight on her forearms. There was no one awake to see her, and so she gratefully took the moment for what it was.

 

The night was still, almost preternaturally silent: an odd thing for the heart of Rome, the capital of the world. Any other night, Xena would have questioned it, searching out a guard and donning her own battledress and weapons to root out the cause; but tonight it seemed like a veil that the gods themselves were drawing over them all - or perhaps away from them all. Xena was hard pressed to know which when her senses felt dulled and heightened all at once, the world outside the Capitoline so silent and this inner sanctum so alive with the flicker of every flame, the beat of each insect’s wings, the touch of the wind in the small hairs at her temples.

 

 _Ares_ , she was tempted to call, only having known this kind of awareness in the moments before he revealed himself to her; but something kept her from breaking the silence.

 

It was in the midst of the same preternatural calm that she first registered a stirring deep within one of the rooms from across the atrium. Spellbound and rooted to the spot, she watched the glow of a lantern pressing against the obscuring curtains, and then the rustling of those same curtains as they parted to reveal a slight figure that, even at a distance, Xena was able to identify immediately.

 

The playwright. Gabrielle of Athens.

 

_Gabrielle._

 

Xena’s calm disappeared instantly, and she hurriedly pressed herself into the shadows and out of sight before she’d made any conscious decision to do so.

 

At any other time, she would have rolled her eyes at herself - the most powerful woman in the world, and here she was, hiding from a pretty girl like a stupid peasant boy. Still, she was relieved to see that she hadn’t been seen. Gabrielle was too comfortable in her assumed solitude for that, or else Xena had severely misjudged both her open honesty and her awareness of self. It was possible. Xena had spoken with her for only a half hour, and Gabrielle had been somewhat shy even in her boldness, but still, it was difficult to fake that particular brand of kind, good-hearted innocence. The gods knew Xena had known too little of it in her life for it to do anything but shine like a beacon.

 

And maybe that was why something in her soul cried out for more of this woman’s presence. Maybe it wasn’t anything more than that, and her own attraction to her. She’d been lovely this evening in her Athenian finery, small and radiant with the glow of her success and some indefinable inner beauty; but now, stripped of everything but her assumed solitude and a linen sheet from the baths wrapped casually around her frame, the sight of her made Xena’s breath come short and her heart pound.

 

Xena wanted to brush back her hair. She wanted to trail her fingertips over her bare shoulders and watch her shiver. She wanted to hook her fingers at the top of the linen where it crossed over her breasts and tug it loose while she watched Gabrielle’s eyes burn. She wanted to discover the way into her soul and bury herself there, or else to gather her whole and bring her inside of herself so that nothing could ever destroy her.

 

It was too much, Xena knew. Why was this happening? She couldn’t remember the last time, if ever, she’d been so overcome with a depth of wanting that left her dizzy.

 

In a haze, she realized she’d stepped out of the shadows, but only because Gabrielle’s eyes had snapped to her. Was Xena’s desire written so plainly across her face? It must have been. Were she not bound so completely, Xena would have laughed at the way Gabrielle looked around her, as if someone else might have stepped onto the balcony behind her and seized Xena’s interest. Xena could see the exact moment she accepted that it was meant for her, and felt it deep in her gut as something connected between them, even from such a distance, and was acknowledged, and solidified into something impossibly real.

 

 _Give me a sign,_ Xena thought. _Give me a sign -_ and what? She would steal her way through her own palace like a common thief, sneak into this woman’s rooms, sweep her off her feet, make her body gasp, moan, sing? Xena could do it. There was no doubt in her mind.

 

Two heartbeats, four, seven - and then Gabrielle dropped her eyes and bowed her head in an awkward genuflection before disappearing back into her rooms, leaving Xena suspended somewhere between disappointment and uncertainty.

 

It was just as well, though she didn’t know it at the time: the high priestess was already behind her and watching every move from the darkness, and not too much later, her husband and Brutus would crowd in as well. Bad enough the events set in motion by the next few moments; worse still that Gabrielle would inevitably be dragged into them.

 

( _Not that we could have avoided that,_ Gabrielle would remind her much later, as if Xena didn’t already know. _Not that we would have wanted to,_  as if inevitability was really bound up by the Fates and not something much more precious _._ But Xena wouldn’t have to ask how Gabrielle had meant it, not with the solemn memory of the loom seared into her mind, the threads of fate frayed and mending, undone and rewoven, reweaving.)

 

Still: if there was one thing she could take consolation in, it was that at least Xena, Empress of Rome, wasn’t made a fool of at the beginning of her downfall.


	2. Chapter 1

It was a good day for an execution. 

 

Xena ascended the Rostra in full battle dress with Caesar at her side, while the crowds thronging the Forum quieted to a kind of stillness that was almost unnatural to the heart of Rome, especially during a seven day festival. Xena had honestly suspected more resistance to her announcement that she would kill Alti during Cerealia. It was highly irregular for a priestess of Alti’s status to be executed at all, let alone in the middle of one of the Empire’s most important religious holidays; but Xena had been banking on the advantages of haste, her own popularity, and the people’s near-universal dislike of Alti. 

 

It the turnout meant anything, it had been a good gamble. The Vestals were chanting away in their house further down the Via Sacra, keeping themselves away from where the condemned might see them and claim exoneration on a technicality. The rest of the college of priests, not bound by any such tradition, were front and center.

 

As expected. The corners of Xena’s lips quirked up. 

 

“Friends,” Caesar began next to her. “Today we witness the death of a traitor to Rome.”

 

The crowd erupted. Bound and chained on the Rostra below her, Alti scoffed, but for once in her miserable life remained silent. Caesar lazily waved his hand for quiet, which he eventually got, more or less.

 

“Her crime?” Caesar called out clearly, letting the words hang in the expectant quiet. “Attempting to murder your empress.”

 

Another eruption. Xena let herself bask in it. It was all for show, sure - but Caesar knew how to put on a pretty godsdamn good one. 

 

Alti might have been Xena’s discovery, a tenuous ally of a barbarian shamaness who had accompanied Xena on her campaigns across Greece and the steppes in her warlord days, but she’d become Caesar’s pet almost immediately after they’d married. His decision to appoint her as high priestess hadn’t been entirely baffling - Alti was the real deal, moreso than any random patrician who’d bought his way into the role - but it had also been deeply unpopular, which was odd enough for a man who was almost obsessed with acquiring and maintaining the people’s love. 

 

“I’ve been waiting for this day, Alti,” Xena said over the continued roar of the crowd, and Alti sneered up at her. 

 

“I know you have,” Alti said. “I just wonder if you really think that killing me is going to make any difference.”

 

“Oh, it’ll make a difference, all right. You can trust me on that.”

 

Alti spat at her - a first, and a sign that she wasn’t anywhere near as calm and collected as she made herself out to be. Xena outright laughed at that, and dodged it easily.

 

“You’ve lost, Alti. It’s as simple as that,” Xena told her. “I shoulda known you’d be a sore loser.”

 

“I’m not any kind of loser at all,” Alti denied with a smile that almost made Xena believe her. “I’m just sorry that I won’t be here when you figure it out.”

 

Xena scoffed. “Not this again. Guess you’re just as mortal as the rest of us, huh? Just as scared of death. Bet you figured your powers would get you out of this.”

 

“Self-congratulation has never suited you, Xena,” Alti said dismissively. “Death comes for us all. See if you think your own power will save you from it when the time comes.”

 

“Oh, is that what you were trying to prove last night?” Xena asked, affecting curiosity before dropping it. “Save it for Charon.”

 

Alti laughed, the sound coarse as it ever had been. “If that’s what you want, I’ll take the truth with me. It’s more than you can begin to guess, with your - shall we say - _limited_ imagination. But don’t insult me by pretending you don’t want to know, that you aren’t _craving_ it right now. You’re the one who came to see me this morning, and you were begging for it.” Her smile turned seductive. “The way you always did.”

 

And _godsdamn_ her, she was right. 

 

After her husband had found Alti with her hands around Xena’s neck and in the thrall of some unnameable power last night, it had taken Xena a few hours to calm her anger and humiliation enough to approach her. It hadn’t been until nearly the first light of dawn that Xena had descended into the prison, where Alti had been stirring into consciousness for the last time, to ask her burning question. 

 

“Why did you do it?” she’d hissed. “You knew that Caesar would have had you executed for this. The risk was absurdly high, and you are the most conniving and calculating bitch I’ve ever had the displeasure to know. This wasn’t like you.”

 

From where she had been laying on the crude cot cut out of the stone wall, Alti had rubbed her head - a souvenir from the legion of men it had taken to knock her out so that putting chains on her was possible - and silently refused to answer. 

 

“Come on, Alti,” Xena said. “You’re not really gonna let me think that suddenly the sight of me enraged you to the point of murder? Or worse - that somebody paid you off to kill me, hiring you like the pontifex maxima is just some common assassin? Or - worse still - a clumsy enough assassin to have done it where Caesar would be certain to have heard a struggle in his wife’s rooms?”

 

For a minute, Xena had thought she’d had her. But Alti’s smile turned feral in that familiar way, and Xena knew she would not be getting her answers. 

 

“Oh Xena, let’s not pretend that you’re not here because of what I showed you,” Alti said, her rictus grin stretching her face. 

 

Well - maybe not _those_ answers, Xena had acknowledged. 

 

“You seemed pretty surprised yourself by the things you showed me,” Xena said coolly. “Say what you like, but I’m not gonna believe whatever horseshit you spout when you clearly have no idea what in Tartarus you’re talking about.”

 

“I can have a pretty good guess - a better guess than you,” Alti pointed out. “Let me out and I’ll show you more. I know how to do it now.”

 

“That’s the best you’ve got?” Xena asked. “And here I was, hoping for so much better.”

 

“The question is, Xena, what’s the best _you’ve_ got?” Alti had asked, and without waiting for a response, had laughed. That laugh had always set Xena’s teeth on edge, even in the early days when Xena hadn’t had anything to lose or fear as she’d flown across the world astride her horse, bloodied sword in hand. 

 

“Is that supposed to be a riddle?” Xena asked, derisive. 

 

“It’s whatever you want it to be,” Alti had replied, one smug eyebrow infuriatingly raised as if she truly believed that she could still get out of this. “Release me and find out. You’re not done conquering the world quite yet, you know. And with what I know, maybe you never will be.”

 

Incredible - chained and behind bars and awaiting a very public and very humiliating execution by Xena’s hands in the middle of one of Rome’s holiest feriae, and she was still threatening Xena. 

 

“I’ll see you at midday,” Xena said as parting words, and withdrew. 

 

And now, the midday sun burned high over Xena’s head. Alti lay in a heap at Xena’s feet where the guards had thrown her, surrounded by blunt sticks ready to beat her into submission without breaking the sacred prohibition against spilling blood within city bounds. Xena had wondered how best to go about the execution - strangulation, as was traditional, was out with Alti’s powers. Beating was too barbaric for even Xena’s tastes, as was stoning, as was hurling her from the Tarpeian Rock to her death below. But Alti had always inspired the worst in her, and Xena had an idea that she’d figure it out when the time came.

 

“Come on, Xena,” Alti taunted her. “Let me put these hands on your body one more time. You know you want it.” Her guards were fidgeting, and Alti noticed it with a laugh. “How sweet that you have an entire cadre of men to defend your honor. Too bad it’s a few years too late.”

 

Caesar was droning on - “the great heart of Rome will never be quelled by traitors” - and Xena did her best not to fidget or roll her eyes. She knew the value of putting on a good show; she just liked it better when she was the one doing it. Caesar had always been a charismatic bastard, but then so had she.

 

“I bet you never expected that you’d command so much love, did you?” Alti said, and Xena continued to ignore her. “Not really your style, is it? You’ve always been more the rule by fear type. Rape, murder, and pillage. What a change.”

 

“Shut up, whore,” the guard nearest Xena snarled as it finally became too much for him - one who had incidentally been with Xena since her days running wild in Greece. Incidentally, the same could have been said of Alti. 

 

“And where’s the fun in that?” Alti said, laughing loudly enough that Caesar raised his voice and widened the gesticulations of his arms, walking easily down the length of the Rostra. “Oh, Xena, didn’t I promise you you’d be the destroyer of nations? And look at you now, the beloved heart of Rome itself. So far away from your potential.”

 

Gods, but what Xena wouldn’t give for her to shut up. Her guard, Dairos, started toward her menacingly, but Xena stopped him with a hand to his shoulder and a shake of her head. 

 

“She’s here for me to execute, not you,” she said under her breath. “You don’t want to deprive your empress of the fun, now, do you?” 

 

“No, imperatrix,” he said sheepishly. “But if she moves on you - “

 

“She’s restrained and nobody’s touching her. She’s not going anywhere.”

 

“But - “

 

“She’s trying to get in our heads,” Xena said patiently in the same undertone. “You know how she operates. Don’t let her.”

 

Chastened, he bowed and retreated. “Yes, imperatrix.”

 

“So touching,” Alti mocked, and this time Xena did roll her eyes. “You’d never know how this one used to beg me to teach her my powers, for glimpses into her future, for a command of the world that even all this doesn’t come close to touching. Are you satisfied, Xena? Truly?”

 

Dairos stayed firmly put this time, and so did Xena. There was something to be said for having people around you who had already seen you at your worst. 

 

“Don’t tell me you aren’t intrigued, at the very least, by what you saw last night. Kill me now, and you’ll never find out what all that’s about.”

 

Unable to help herself, Xena rolled her eyes again. Now Alti was making it out to be something Xena had searched her out for, maybe even been provoked enough to lash out at her and in turn provoke Alti’s attack on her, and thus delegitimizing this entire spectacle. Dairos would know better, but Xena was keenly aware of the ranks of guards surrounding her.

 

Not to mention the part of Xena that did desperately want to know the truth of what Alti had shown her last night. Never mind that she knew it was entirely inadvertently - Alti had been too surprised for it to have been anything else, and was definitely in no position to actually explain any of it to Xena if she’d wanted to. And Xena was certainly under no illusions that she did. She’d do much better to search out a common soothsayer, or if she was really feeling her power, the Pythia at Delphi. 

 

“Now, let us suffer traitors no more!” Caesar was busily bombasting on the other end of the rosta. Excellent, he was winding down. Xena flexed her hands and considered her options, making the mistake of looking at Alti as she did so. Alti seemed to have been waiting for just such an opening, and she smirked. 

 

“It’s bold of you to assume, Xena, that by killing me you can prevent your world crashing down around you,” Alti said, taunting. “It’s already begun, hasn’t it? Because you’re doing it yourself. You’re too curious for your own good, and you have no idea how deep all this goes. I’m just the beginning, you know.”

 

“... now, let traitors to Rome and our glorious Empire ordained by the gods themselves know what wrath awaits them!” Caesar cried. The roar of the crowd rose and swelled around them, buoying Xena and all her rage up helplessly in as debris in a flash flood. Xena took her cue and backhanded Alti without a thought, and if not for her training and self control, would have doubled over at a sudden onslaught of images forcing their way into her mind. Blonde hair. Bare shoulders. Her heart stopped briefly. 

 

It was over in a moment, only Dairos noticing her slip and tensing to help her in a moment - “Imperatrix,” his voice cautioned as Xena had just cautioned him - but Xena was already advancing in renewed rage, letting the crowd’s screams drive her higher, further. Alti laughed again, maniacal and delighted.

 

“There she is, the real Xena, destroyer of nations, overcome with the bloodlust that will always sing in your blood,” she said, even as her face took on a secretive look, binding her and Xena together in an old world, fifteen years gone but always alive at the edges of Xena’s mind. “I wonder,” she said, “where’s your playwright?” And she laughed, throwing her head back so that the sound of it echoed through the Forum. 

 

Xena didn’t wait any longer, drawing her sword without ceremony and plunging it into her chest. Alti didn’t stop her laughter even through her gasps of pain, but the crowd had gone quiet again at the sight of her blood spilling onto the roof of the Rostra. 

  


* * *

 

  


It took all of five seconds once their chariot was away and the roar of the crowd behind them for Caesar’s mask to drop. 

 

“Was that really necessary? I’ll probably have to bribe the collegium to get them off our backs about that one.”

 

He sounded more irritated by the inconvenience than actually upset, and Xena brushed it off with a wave of her hand. “And that’s something you’ve never done before?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Anyone would think you’re not glad to see your wife avenge herself of attempted murder - or do I need to remind you of that, considering how solicitous you were after the fact last night?”

 

“By the gods, Xena, they might be a bunch of rich ass-kissers but they’re still gods-fearing men,” Caesar said tiredly. “The question isn’t whether I wanted you avenged, it’s the fact that I’m going to have to deal with a lot of superstitious fear because of the way you chose to avenge yourself. Nobody would have batted an eyelash if you’d just strangled her, but that much blood so publicly spilled _in the godsdamned Forum,_ Xena! During Cerealia!”

 

The issue was a trifling one as far as Xena was concerned. Brawls broke out in the Forum several times per month in which more than one man died of a knife or sword wound, and infinitely more Roman noses were bloodied. Xena hadn’t heard tell of any overly pious concerns about bloodshed within city walls from anyone except the men’s mothers and wives. 

 

She turned and grinned at him, adding a wink because she knew it would irritate him. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a curse.”

 

He didn’t rise to the bait, and instead regarded her coolly. “Why aren’t you taking this seriously? Even in Thrace, I know you had your gods. I know you’ve _met_ your gods. The entire Empire knows about your affiliation with Ares, and he’s Greek.”

 

“Oh, he’s branching out these days.” Truthfully, she hadn’t seen Ares since since her earliest days of warlording, shortly after she’d first met Caesar, but Caesar certainly didn’t need to know that. There was a particular mystique and credibility that her association with Ares had lent her, especially among a people as remarkably superstitious as the Romans were, and she intended on holding onto it. 

 

“Regardless _,_ ” he snapped. “This isn’t a game.”

 

“No. But I could be forgiven for it if I were mistaken.” 

 

Caesar regarded her curiously for a long moment. “Don’t tell me you’re starting to get soft in your old age. It used to be that nothing got you going more than the game, and now this is the second time in as many days that you’ve implied that you’re beyond them. I thought I knew who I married.”

 

More dangerous was the implication that she was also beyond Caesar, Xena knew. “Oh, you’ve always known perfectly well who you married,” she assured him. 

 

“So long as that woman hasn’t changed.” 

 

“If I’m not mistaken, you were in the middle of yelling at me about being too impulsive and indecorous about how I executed a woman,” Xena said testily. “Does that say to you that I’ve changed?”

 

“I suppose you do have a point,” Caesar said, but still, he watched her carefully. “I will admit that I’m glad we’re rid of her.”

 

“Interesting, coming from the man who kept giving her more power whenever she asked for it, like a spoiled child.”

 

“Perhaps I’d been coming to share your views about that,” Caesar admitted. “And perhaps I simply take exception to anyone trying to murder my wife.”

 

“Yeah, well,” Xena muttered. “I’m starting to wonder if that’s gonna be an isolated incident.”

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“Something she said - that she was just the start. That I had no idea how far this went,” Xena said. 

 

Caesar actually looked troubled. “When was this?”

 

“While you were carrying on up there,” Xena said dryly. 

 

That seemed to relieve Caesar. Xena wished she could feel the same. “Ramblings of a condemned woman, doing her best to get you to stay her execution,” he dismissed. “She was trying to get in your head. Don’t let her know that you’ve actually won.”

 

“I’m not,” Xena snapped - as if she wanted to hear her own words thrown back at her. “But at the same time, I think I owe it to my own safety to be concerned.” Caesar looked like he was about to argue with her, but she cut him off. “Look, I just have a bad feeling about this. I’m not asking for your permission.”

 

“Alright,” he conceded after a brief battle of wills. “Just don’t let her control you from the grave.”

 

He followed that statement with a long period of studying her that set Xena on edge. “What?” she asked.

 

“I’ve been wondering - just how did she manage to do it?” Caesar asked. “It’s not like you to let anyone get a jump on you.”

 

“I am not going soft,” she said again, a little more defensively than maybe she should have.

 

“Noted,” Caesar said wryly, but thankfully didn’t argue. 

 

“You know how she is - _was_ ,” she corrected herself. “I’d stepped out onto my balcony, and she was waiting for me when I came back inside.”

 

“That’s it?”

 

“Yes,” Xena snapped again. 

 

“Nothing… provoked her?” 

 

“What exactly are you accusing me of?” Xena asked, eyes narrowed. “Because by my count, that’s also the second time in as many days for you.”

 

“I’m not accusing you of anything,” Caesar said, so easily that Xena might have believed him if she hadn’t known better. “All I know is I fell asleep with you, and the next thing I know you’re in your rooms well on your way to being strangled.”

 

“Yeah, well, trust me, it surprised me as much as you,” Xena said under her breath. “She was power mad. Had been for a long time, probably since before I met her. Even in her last moments while she was shackled and about to die, she was ranting about how I’d never become the destroyer of nations she’d prophesied I would a decade and a half ago. Thank the gods I didn’t take that one too seriously.”

 

“She’s not often wrong,” Caesar said, but his tone was deceptively light.

 

Xena snorted. “Don’t tell _me_ you’re buying into that horse manure. She was trying to save her life by provoking me, and only provoked me into ending her life. She lost. We won. End of story.”

 

“Listen to you, spouting out ‘happily ever after’s,” Caesar said, apparently bemused. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think that insipid play last night had actually rubbed off on you.”

 

“You’ve sat through a hundred insipid plays, and yet this is the one you can’t stop talking about,” she observed. “Anyone might think there was a reason for it.”

 

Caesar laughed in that charming way he did to defuse the tension out of an escalating conversation with statesmen and priests. It had fooled Xena briefly when she’d been a girl, but she’d known better for most of their lengthy courtship, and all of their marriage.  

 

“Hardly, my dear,” he said, taking her hand and kissing it in an apology he would never give. “You know how I like my public spectacles, and I thought I knew how you liked them, too: with a little more gore and violence.”

 

Perhaps that much was true, but Xena sensed there was more to it. With the business of the execution to attend to eating up most of their morning, she hadn’t seen the playwright since… whatever that had been last night. A part of her felt a reflexive indefinable heat, something that wasn’t quite arousal or even the memory of it; but another part of her was baffled in the clear light of day. She hadn’t had many scruples back in the day, but she’d become much more careful since she’d become Empress. Not that the playwright was even the sort of woman she’d have pursued back in the day, scruples or not. 

 

The rational part of Xena supposed there was no accounting for how desires changed, and that Gabrielle was by anyone’s standards a remarkably lovely woman. The part of Xena that operated on instinct and gut feeling - the part that had kept her alive all this time - was telling her that something was up, that there was some piece of information she didn’t have. 

 

She spared a sideways glance at Caesar, who was still casually holding her hand. Anyone would think he was actually in love with her, which might have been his aim, except that none of the people thronging the streets were in a position to see it - no one save Xena herself. And he certainly knew better than to think he could fool her about this. 

 

“I suppose there are some things that just appeal to us women,” she finally offered. 

 

Caesar laughed at that. “You are hardly anyone’s idea of a traditional woman, Xena.”

 

“No,” she murmured over the clatter of wheels on cobblestone as they turned onto the road that would take them up the Capitoline. “But still a woman nonetheless.”

  


 

* * *

 

 

Gabrielle usually welcomed the chance to travel, knowing how rare it was for any woman, no matter how well-off, to find herself on the road as often as she did. It could be lonely, as any other part of her life could be, but there was an intrinsic freedom to it that called so deeply to her soul that she knew if she were doing nothing else right in her life, it was this. 

 

Even so, it hadn’t exactly been her choice to go to Rome. Technically the imperial summons had come to everyone who had placed at the Dionysia last year and left the choice of who would answer it up to them. Aeschylus had quickly bowed out despite having taken first prize, claiming old age, as had Euripides in third place, muttering something about a previous engagement in Macedonia. 

 

Which had left Gabrielle, who cared nothing about the politics and social maneuvering that such a trip to Rome would entail, especially during a feria such as Cerealia, and would have much rather stayed at her vineyard in Piraeus and spent her days writing in the warm summer weather. 

 

To be fair, Gabrielle had to admit that Aeschylus _was_ liable to break a bone or two on the journey; and as much as Euripides might have actually enjoyed it, her old friend was being distressingly cryptic about this trip to Macedonia. 

 

“Say hi to my folks, won’t you?” she’d said grumpily as he’d prepared to leave, and he’d laughed.

 

“Not that part of Macedonia,” he’d said. “Amphipolis, where the winds blow soft and sweet, is my aim.”

 

“The capital, huh? And you’re sure you won’t tell me why?”

 

“My dearest Gabrielle, should fortune strike me, you’ll know it in due time, and then you shall be the first I’ll tell,” he promised, dropping a friendly kiss on her forehead. It had done nothing to liven her scowl, and he laughed again. “Look not so dour on such a bright future, you to Rome, and I to Amphipolis!” 

 

“Ugh,” had said Gabrielle, rising to press a kiss of her own to his cheek, while he obligingly ducked down so that she could. “Safe journeys, friend. I’ll see you when you return.”

 

“The same to you!” he’d called after her, and unable to help herself, she granted him a smile at that. 

 

So here she was, stuck in Rome and longing for home with every fiber of her being, as she would be for the next several days until the feria’s end. Something about this place set her on edge without her being able to identify what specifically it was beyond the blatantly obvious. Greece had its own brand of human cruelty and its own gods that perpetuated it, but Rome felt worlds apart just from the glimpses she’d caught of the city in the two days they’d been here: cruelty was casual and commonplace in the streets with slavery existing on an order she’d never seen before, even in Athens. 

 

Of course, most of her time here so far had been spent in rehearsal and managing the stage. Today was her troupe’s first full day in the city when they hadn't been similarly engaged, and most of them had ventured into the crowds earlier that morning, if the lack of noise in their assigned part of the palace meant anything. 

 

“What a city, eh?” came a voice from behind her, and Gabrielle turned to find her lead actor sporting a grin.

 

“Good time last night, Alexius?” she asked dryly, spotting the dark circles under his eyes and the haggard expression on his face. 

 

“Fantastic. Saw you chatting with the Empress for a good long while at the party. She had you pretty well monopolized.”

 

Gabrielle had had no problem with being thusly monopolized, and valiantly kept a neutral face at Alexius’ wagging eyebrows. “She enjoyed the play. She was interested in hearing more about my writing process.” Among related topics.

 

“Ah,” said Alexius, far too knowingly for Gabrielle’s tastes. “Thought I saw the glimmer of womanly tears up there in the imperial box right after the play, too. An unprecedented reaction from what I hear, but a big boast under our belts. Do I smell patronage in the works?”

 

“Don’t tempt misfortune,” she chided him, and looked around. “Is everyone else still sleeping it off, or did they go into the city?”

 

“Most everybody’s been out for ages. There was a big to-do in the Forum this morning - some high-ranking woman was executed,” he said. “Did you miss it? A lot of blood, which apparently is a big taboo here for some reason. They seem to like their blood and guts in everything else.”

 

“Maybe putting limits on the blood and guts makes them feel more civilized,” Gabrielle observed, only for Alexius to look around and gesture wildly for her to be quiet, which Gabrielle sheepishly did.

 

“Don’t tempt misfortune,” he threw back at her even as she looked around to see that the hallway was still clear, insofar as that meant anything at the imperial palace. “You haven’t stayed holed up in here all day?” Alexius continued, peering at her more closely. 

 

Gabrielle shrugged. “It was a late night last night. I was getting my well-deserved sleep.” Alexius rolled his eyes. “It’s only the fourth hour!” she protested.

 

“By the gods, Gabrielle, you’re not _that_ old,” he said, and she made a face at him. “Go on, live a little. You might hate the city, but you’ve gotta admit - it is a marvel.”

 

“I don’t have to admit anything.”

 

“You’re not _able_ to admit anything because you haven’t seen enough to form an opinion,” was his cheeky reply. He sized up her dress - a simple but well-made stola and palla, one of several left in her rooms presumably for her use. “See, your desires have anticipated you. You look like a proper Roman woman.”

 

“Not too proper, I hope,” she muttered, and he laughed. 

 

“Never,” he said, and rearranged the lay of her palla across her shoulder and arm. “There - now you really look like a not-too-proper Roman woman. Get out there, you’re sure to run into one of the crew.”

 

“And where are you going?” she called after him as he started down the hallway again.

 

“Bed! I’m taking full advantage of the day in reverse order,” he called back. 

 

“Don't be late tonight!"

 

“Whatever you say, boss,” Alexius said, grinning amicably before he disappeared into his room, the full extent of his youth suddenly blindly apparent in that one expression. Gabrielle returned it, struck suddenly by how he had once been exactly the kind of boy she had gravitated toward: kind, handsome, an air of easy affability about him. 

 

Most of the time they had gravitated to her in turn, too, even once she’d come to Athens from Poteidaia. Of course Perdicus - dear, sweet Perdicus - had actually eventually followed her to Athens, and she’d made the mistake of marrying him, romance-struck by the gesture to the point of believing herself in love. It wouldn’t have been a bad life, she knew it wouldn’t have been; but in the few weeks between her wedding and her widowhood, she’d felt the imminent way that her dreams, her desires, her entire life were on the cusp of slipping from her fingertips. 

 

Gabrielle had been a little surprised to discover that even once she’d been widowed, she hadn’t stopped being desirable as a wife. It didn’t matter, really. Gabrielle hadn’t been in a hurry to become anyone’s wife again, and after the initial concern from her friends, nobody was pestering her to change that. She’d spent long enough bringing up the “w” word and rearranging her face into an appropriately sad expression whenever a man showed an interest in her that now, eight years after the fact, it had become a joke among them. 

 

“My friend, don’t you know?” Homer had said more than once to whatever bemused man had been foolish enough to approach her in their presence, clapping him genially on the shoulder. “Gabrielle’s in _mourning._ ” 

 

To which said bemused man would take in Gabrielle’s bright clothing, cheerful disposition, and sheepish shrug, and usually wander away. 

 

And so all of those loveable boys had grown up and gotten wives of their own, and Gabrielle had happily gone to their weddings. She wondered when she’d find herself at Alexius’. With the eyes he’d taken to making at her lead actress, probably not long. 

 

The Forum was spread out directly beneath the Capitoline, and once Gabrielle found her way out of the palace, it was easy for her to pick her way down the hill and join the interminable crowds processing with their wares to sell and animals to sacrifice. Alexius was right: it _was_ a spectacle, in the same way Athens had been a spectacle when she’d first arrived at eighteen. 

 

It was crowded enough that Gabrielle quickly gave up on the idea of finding one of her own troupe out and about, and let herself drift and be jostled from place to place by the movements of the crowd, intentionally stopping only when she found something that caught her eye. Orations were being made from the old senate house, priestesses who were no more than girls glided silently by, loose chickens ran amuck between the legs of the crowd and away from the increasingly desperate voice of the man who had presumably lost them. Gabrielle was able to grab one, valiantly holding on through the flapping wings and squawking attempts at escape, and handed it to the man when he pushed his way through the crowd behind her. 

 

“Oh, oh, thank you!” he said, accepting it and wrangling it under his arm with practiced ease. “I don’t know how this happened, it never has before, the gods as my witnesses…”

 

“You’re welcome,” Gabrielle replied as he disappeared again, wondering how exactly he was intending on carrying multiple chickens with only two arms, even if he managed to catch them. 

 

A hand cupped her elbow from behind, and as Gabrielle jumped, a deep, melodic female voice said in Macedonian, “An animal wrangler as well as a playright. You’re a woman of diverse talents.”

 

Gabrielle whirled around. “Empress?” she exclaimed in kind, only for the woman herself to gesture for her to hush, her eyes sparkling. 

 

“Now, I don’t see why we aren’t just two women out to enjoy the day and do some shopping for our households, maybe catching the odd chicken as needed,” the Empress said, linking her arm through Gabrielle’s. Gabrielle allowed herself to be pulled along, bewildered. 

 

“Sure. Ordinary women. You and me,” she agreed nonetheless, stealing a glance up at her companion to make sure she wasn’t mistaken about the Empress’ identity. She wasn’t - not that Gabrielle should have expected otherwise. 

 

The Empress hadn’t commented on it last night when Gabrielle had slipped into Macedonian for the first time in years, merely adjusting her speech without a break in thought, and similarly, she didn’t comment on it now. Idly, Gabrielle wondered if she missed it in the way the Gabrielle sometimes did, the way an old longing for home and everything it had never been sometimes crept over her. 

 

“You do know that you stick out in a crowd, even if you don’t assume that these people all recognize you and know who you are?” Gabrielle felt compelled to ask, not entirely sure what the Empress was expecting out of her - especially after… whatever that had been… last night across their respective balconies.

 

The Empress shrugged. “I’ve found that people see what they want to see,” she said, “and in the case of the marketplace, they want to see good Roman matronae acting as pillars of their families. As you can see, I’ve dressed the part.”

 

And she had. Her plain white stola and light blue palla were of modest cloth and color - at least, modest for the Empress of Rome - with the palla functioning as a veil to cover her upswept dark hair. There was no disguising those eyes, though, once you knew them. The blue of the palla against what little of the dark of her hair Gabrielle could see only served to bring them out more, but she refrained from saying anything about it.

 

“I see you’ve traded in your chiton for Roman garb as well,” the Empress said as she guided them through the Forum. 

 

“Well, when in Rome,” Gabrielle said, laughing nervously and fidgeting with the lay of her own palla over her shoulder, only to trail off when the Empress looked at her expectantly. “Do as the Romans do?” she concluded. 

 

“Hmm,” the Empress said. Gabrielle thought she saw a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “I like that. Use it in one of your plays and it might catch on.”

 

“You think so?” Gabrielle asked, unaccountably pleased.

 

“Sure,” the Empress said. “Did you leave the palace just to sightsee, or were you looking for something in particular in the Forum?” 

 

“Just to sightsee, I suppose. I wouldn’t count out buying something if I found it, though.”

 

“Would you be interested in letting the Empress of Rome show you the sights?” she offered instead. “I’m a very qualified tour guide.”

 

“I - would think that the Empress of Rome has more important things to do,” Gabrielle said, hesitating even as her heart beat faster.

 

It earned her a knowing smirk. “What if I told you that the Empress of Rome was going to sneak out today regardless, but that she’d rather have company and a purpose?”

 

“Is that safe? What with you being who you are, I mean,” Gabrielle couldn’t help asking. The Empress raised an eyebrow that Gabrielle thought she correctly took to mean _Do you know who you’re talking to_ , and shifted her palla to reveal a distinctive discus hidden at her hip. Gabrielle had never seen it in action - had never had cause to - but she’d heard the stories. 

 

Still, Gabrielle hesitated. “Your guards really don’t know where you are?” 

 

“I didn’t say _that,_ ” the Empress dismissed impatiently and without elaborating. “Well? Now that you’re assured of your safety.”

 

“It wasn’t my safety I was worried about.” 

 

The Empress only quirked her lips, something like surprise pulling at the corners of her eyes when Gabrielle’s meaning registered. “Then I’m touched,” she said, gracefully refraining from commenting on the foolishness of the sentiment. “However, I should warn you that my offer to play tour guide does have an expiration date.” 

 

Gabrielle laughed at her expectant look, deciding all at once to relax into the feeling of inexplicable ease the Empress’ presence brought on. “Point taken. Lead on.”

 

The city seemed like one big marketplace, shops and taverns and bakeries lining every street that the Empress led her down. Twice the Empress stopped to buy them both some food from street vendors after appraising Gabrielle’s interest level - “The sights include the food,” was all she would say - which Gabrielle happily munched on as the Empress related information about the places and people they passed, situating it within the context of the greater, growing Empire. 

 

It was odd to think about the Empress in this way, given the identity she’d had in Gabrielle’s mind all through her childhood and early adulthood. Poteidaia had been lucky both in that they’d been willing to surrender, and that Xena hadn’t swept in and flattened them anyway during her conquest of Macedonia. Maybe it was simply that Xena - the Empress, Gabrielle corrected herself - had found her truest purpose in Rome, where she had the power and resources to conquer the entire world rather than limiting herself to what even the Greeks themselves saw as a backwater kingdom. Gabrielle had spent years training the Macedonian accent out of her speech when she’d arrived in Athens. No doubt Xena had done something similar. 

 

“So, do you do this often - sneaking away from the palace in disguise?” Gabrielle ventured eventually.

 

“Would it surprise you if I said yes?” 

 

Gabrielle couldn’t help a laugh. “No.”

 

The Empress smirked at Gabrielle’s response, which Gabrielle correctly took as an answer in and of itself. “I’m not trying to be as sneaky as you think. Well, not quite as sneaky. Brutus wouldn’t like this, but what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. My guards are around here too - Dairos is at the tannery just there, Septimus Cornelius is exchanging currency over there, and three others are trailing behind us. No, don’t look,” she said, holding fast to Gabrielle’s arm as she tried to twist around to see if she could spot them. “You’ll draw attention to us.”

 

“And that would be bad,” Gabrielle surmised dutifully. Delightfully, the Empress took it for the question it was and chuckled.

 

“Not catastrophic, sure, but I’d like to retain my anonymity for the future. I’m sure you can relate; you’re famous in your own right.”

 

“I’m a little less obvious than you are,” Gabrielle ventured to joke. “My face also isn’t on the coinage.”

 

“I guess you have a point there. You would never sneak away in disguise, then? Not even in Athens?”

 

“In Athens, it’s easy for anyone to blend it. People know me for my words, not my face,” Gabrielle explained. “It’s a different situation. Besides, while I’m pretty attached to the Academy, I don’t live in the city.”

 

“You don’t?” the Empress asked in surprise. “Doesn’t that make things difficult when you’re as prolific as you must be?”

 

“Not overly,” Gabrielle said. “Piraeus is only a little over an hour’s journey from Athens. I can be there anytime I want, pretty much.”

 

“Piraeus. Nice town, pretty coast,” the Empress said, clearly familiar. “Was that your choice or your husband’s?”

 

Gabrielle was used to the assumption she was married - few women her age weren’t - but this felt distinctly more like an attempt to discover information. Well, Gabrielle was happy to oblige; it wasn’t a secret. 

 

“Mine. I’m not married. Well,” Gabrielle corrected, “not anymore. Not for a while.”

 

“I’m sorry,” the Empress said sincerely. 

 

Gabrielle shook her head. “Don’t be,” she said. “It was a long time ago.”

 

“And you’ve never remarried?”

 

“No. I’ve never really wanted to,” Gabrielle said. “My particular circumstances allow me to live alone, so I’ve never settled again.” The Empress was regarding her very intently, and when Gabrielle caught sight of it, she laughed self-consciously. “I’m sorry. You probably don’t want to hear about the views of a widow who has no interest in remarrying and still writes love stories."

 

“Love and marriage aren’t confined to each other,” the Empress observed quietly. “It’s not wrong to seek love over marriage, especially if you can afford to do so. It takes a strong person to know what they want and reject what they don’t. Don’t settle if you don’t want to, Gabrielle.”

 

It wasn’t entirely the meaning of ‘settle’ she had originally intended, at least consciously, but Gabrielle accepted it now. 

 

“I had thought there would be more activity surrounding the festival,” Gabrielle said to change the subject. “I’d heard stories about chariot races and gladiators.”

 

The Empress accepted the subject change gracefully. “They don’t happen every day of Cerealia, but there will be more ludi at the Circus Maximus tomorrow. I’d be delighted if you would come as my guest.”

 

“Oh - I hadn’t meant - “

 

“I know you hadn’t,” the Empress said, smiling. “Come anyway. Consider it part of the tour. I happen to have excellent seats, which is more than can be said for most people who will be there.”

 

“Alright,” Gabrielle said, knowing that declining wasn’t really an option any more than declining this trip in the first place had been. 

 

“Excellent,” the Empress said again. “Your play, as you know, was part of the feria yesterday. I wouldn't be surprised if the common celebrations have been thrown a little off-kilter by the business this morning with the pontifex maxima.”

 

Gabrielle frowned, having the nagging sense that she was missing something. “Wait, what happened this morning? With the - the pontifex maxima?”

 

The Empress stopped and stared at her curiously. “You honestly don’t know?” 

 

“I slept until the third hour. This is the first I’ve been outside the palace today.” At the Empress’ increasingly incredulous look, Gabrielle blushed and said defensively, “It was a late night.”

 

The Empress’ eyes dipped and swept her over in a shared memory they also apparently weren’t talking about, and it was enough for Gabrielle’s blush to deepen. _Enough, Gabrielle,_ she chastised herself furiously, even as the Empress seemed to come to a decision and said, “There was an attempt on my life last night.”

 

Gabrielle’s jaw dropped as all thoughts of whatever she’d missed this morning fled, and she reflexively looked over the Empress for signs of injury. “Are you alright?” 

 

“I’m fine,” the Empress said dismissively.

 

“Who was it?”

 

“So many questions,” the Empress said, a smile ghosting on her face. “It was the pontifex maxima. She was subdued by Caesar’s man Brutus after they heard the struggle.”

 

Gabrielle wondered if this had been before or after she’d looked up to find the Empress staring at her from her balcony like she was hungry for Gabrielle’s very soul. After, it must have been after, and all this must have happened while Gabrielle was nervously trying to calm herself in her rooms in the palace, torn between boldly going back outside to meet the Empress’ gaze and hiding inside until the light of day made impossible things impossible once again. 

 

She hadn’t gone back out, of course, though she’d been tempted, arranging and rearranging the linen around her shoulders to best display her shoulders, her collarbones, the teasing glimpse of her cleavage. Gods, what would she have done if she had gone back out and found the Empress still there, waiting for her? 

 

Then again, what would she have done if she had gone back outside, humiliatingly having presented herself as an offering, only for Caesar himself to have caught sight of her? Reflexively, she shuddered. Nothing good, that much was for sure. 

 

“I’m glad she didn’t succeed,” Gabrielle said sincerely, and was rewarded with a quick smile. “You have her secure somewhere, I guess?”

 

“Hmm?” the Empress asked, before saying nonchalantly, “No, I executed her this morning.”

 

“What - this morning? That was what happened?” Gabrielle said, shocked into stopping again. The Empress stopped with her with an eyebrow raised, and Gabrielle couldn’t help but take her in again. 

 

She wore her disguise well - perhaps too well. Gabrielle wouldn’t have guessed she was anything other than an uncommonly beautiful wife to a Roman nobleman, let alone that she’d executed someone not six hours ago. Gabrielle nearly cemented her own stupidity by asking the Empress again if she was alright, this time for different reasons. She didn’t know how the Empress had executed the pontifex maxima and didn’t want to; but while her own stomach was weak when it came to violence and murder, the same certainly couldn’t be said of the woman casually walking at her side. Gabrielle wondered if she’d be used to the apparent disjunction of personalities within the Empress by the time she left.

 

“I’m surprised I haven’t been hearing more about it,” Gabrielle said as she recovered herself. “That’s not something people tend to keep quiet about unless there’s a reason to.”

 

The Empress heard her unasked question and grinned. “Considering it was public and the people were clamoring for her blood, I think maybe your Latin is to blame.”

 

“Hey!” Gabrielle objected, glad enough for a change in subject that she didn’t ask any of the many questions swirling in her mind. “I do okay.” 

 

Delicately, but suggestively, the Empress shrugged and kept her peace. “You’ll be speaking a lot of it tonight, I’m afraid.”

 

She was referring to the dinner following the staging of Gabrielle's next play, which was to be a more informal occasion than last night’s reception. Gabrielle was already dreading it, especially since she couldn’t count on leaning on this unlikely burgeoning friendship - nor was she entirely certain that she wanted to after the jarring reminder that despite it, there was still rather a lot to fear in this woman.

 

“I had assumed,” Gabrielle replied. “I also assume I shouldn’t mention seeing you here?”

 

“Might give Brutus a heart attack,” the Empress said wryly. “So it’s up to you.”

 

“I guess I’ll see how much I like Brutus and then decide,” Gabrielle suggested, and the Empress laughed again. 

 

“You do that,” she said; and looking around, Gabrielle realized that she had seamlessly guided them back into the Forum. The Empress smiled at her surprise. “Unfortunately, the Empress of Rome does have a limit on the time she can disappear, so this is where I’ll leave you. I think you know how to get back to the palace from here?” 

 

“Yes, I think I can manage,” Gabrielle affirmed, scanning the rise of the Capitoline behind her, the outline of the palace cresting the top.

 

“Then thank you for the company and the purpose, Gabrielle. I'm looking forward to the play tonight."

 

"We'll try not to disappoint you."

 

The Empress quirked her lips in response. "I’ll see you tomorrow, if I don’t get to speak with you again tonight.”

 

And with that, the Empress slipped back into the crowd, invisible almost immediately. 

 

“Right - tomorrow, if not tonight,” Gabrielle echoed to no one, her nerves already churning uneasily once again.


	3. Chapter 3

_ Stupid _ , Xena berated herself all the way back through the Forum and into the winding streets that led toward the Campus Martius. 

 

Oh, sure, Xena would admit nothing fatal had occurred; just an hour or so leading her guards - and Brutus’ men inevitably trailing behind them - on a stroll through the nicer parts of Rome while Xena entertained a beautiful woman on her arm. Still, she wasn’t fool enough to think that she wouldn’t be hearing about this in some capacity or another somewhere down the line. 

 

What  _ was  _ it about her? Attraction and desire were one thing, Xena knew what to do with those, but this - this craving to be near Gabrielle whenever she saw her - unsettled Xena more and more with every step she took away from her. She’d known her for a day. She’d had two conversations with her. This level of connection she felt could only be artificial at best. But this strange need, this preternatural familiarity, seemed to come from somewhere outside of her own self, pulling Xena towards it until she could take it upon her and embody it at last. 

 

_ You always did fall hard,  _ her husband’s voice spoke wryly in her mind, and irritably she shook it off. His voice wasn’t wrong - but all the same, Xena couldn’t shake the sense that there was something bigger that she was missing here, that she’d stumbled over a few pieces to a puzzle she hadn’t travelled far enough away from to get perspective on.

 

And still, the memory of Gabrielle stooping to catch someone else’s runaway chicken with the ease of someone who had done so more than once before, all while wearing the fine stola and palla of a respectable matrona of some rank, tugged at something behind Xena’s chest, loosening something familiar and sure and unknown that she’d been hard pressed not to respond to. Who knew what Gabrielle was feeling on the other side of it? Though it was certain at least that she was feeling something. 

 

Surely it couldn’t be something so simple as language and the familiarity of a common home - not with the rest of their shared past lying unspoken between them. Or so Xena imagined, at any rate. After all, she’d killed the bastard who’d tried to conquer her own homeland. She couldn’t imagine that Gabrielle had been harboring forgiving feelings toward her all these years. 

 

Then - what? She still didn’t think Gabrielle was capable of the kind of deception required to play Xena for a fool, let alone strategize her way into it from Athens. Xena tried to imagine it: a scheming Gabrielle taking a shot in the dark that the way to the Empress of Rome’s heart wasn’t dramatized battles at all, but  _ romance _ ; the writing of it and entering of it into the Athenian Dionysia in the hopes that it would win and be noticed; the maneuvering through social circles into Rome itself in the far-flung hope that it would land her exactly where she ended up: on a stage, bowing to the Empress who was besotted with and weeping over her work and the half-formed idea of the woman behind it. 

 

Xena scowled at the idea, some part of her rebelling as much to the content of the thought as to its ludicrousness. And more to the point, anyone who looked at her with that particular mixture of timid, careful, and brave wanting - with an emphasis that oscillated between all three - wasn’t capable of it.

 

Her temper caught the attention of one man walking past her in the opposite direction, and he quickly rethought his decision to say something to her when she turned the full force of her glare on him. 

 

Flimsy disguise aside, most people didn’t actually know her on sight, which was fortune enough. The interminably winding streets of Rome grew closer and more crowded as she picked her way into the Campus Martius, and she raised her palla again to veil her hair more fully even as she lowered her eyes in an appropriately modest fashion. 

 

“Two behind us,” came the voice of Dairos as she passed a fountain where he was resting. “What’s your will?” 

 

By now it was at least three by Xena’s count, and she smiled humorlessly. “Help ‘em get lost if you can,” she said as she too drank. “These streets are awfully twisty, aren’t they? Easy to get turned around.” 

 

“Sure are,” affirmed Dairos. “Can you duck into that next alley? We’ll take it from here.” 

 

Xena sauntered on without further comment, and did as suggested, holding her position until Dairos and her other guards had had enough time to work their magic with the two men they’d spotted. The third Xena lost in a maze of alleys that, while they smelled foul, did the job she’d used them for. Grimly satisfied, she took back to the main streets, still gleaming with new-laid stone, and set about working her way towards her original destination: the temple of Mars.

 

Something about Caesar’s offhanded remark about her relationship with Ares yesterday had taken root in Xena’s mind and refused to settle. Maybe it was because of Alti’s bizarre assassination attempt, maybe because of the persistent rumors about the underworld gone amuck, maybe simply because Xena was so inexplicably shaken by one visiting Greek woman; but the idea of calling on him had nagged at her mind until she’d given into it. 

 

It had been years since she’d last seen him. She’d been more upset as a young woman, less as a jilted lover and more as a protege stranded in the middle of her conquest of Macedonia. For nearly a year she’d thought that Ares had done it as a test of her capabilities, and then to teach her a lesson regarding the type of summons that the god of war would answer - that is to say, not the screaming demands of a half-wild woman, the wildness of two Thracian gods running quick and hot in her veins, hellbent on domination and her own entitlement to patronage. 

 

She’d managed the Macedonian conquest without him, of course, and then some, getting as far south as Chalkidiki and as far north as the Scythian steppes. She’d continued conquering in her own name even after her alliance with Caesar, after all. But she did wonder sometimes how much further she would have gone down that road if she hadn’t been tempered, through necessity, by her ties to Rome.

 

He was worshipped here under the name Mars – a name Xena refused to use, though she wondered if all worship was the same to him. She smirked humorlessly to herself at the thought. Ares always had been an opportunist, so maybe. It had to rankle that he wasn’t exactly a popular god here among even the warmongering Romans, though. 

 

Caesar had been the one to suggest the incorporation of the Campus Martius into the city proper, as well as its rededication to the god of war. 

 

“I’m surprised at you,” he’d commented at her apathetic agreement. “I would have thought this would have been your first move as Empress.”

 

“Eh. He has enough temples in Greece and Thrace.”

 

“My dear. It’s not about whether he has enough temples. It’s about whether  _ we  _ do.”

 

And so a temple to Mars had been built along with the new insulae rising up around Pompey’s theater (“That whore for attention,” Caesar would comment calmly at his name) and the overall transformation of the area from military training ground to fashionable district. Xena thought that if Ares actually were paying attention to any of this, he probably wouldn’t actually be all that flattered. 

 

Still, she entered it because she didn’t know where else to go. 

 

In the old days, he would have come to her wherever she called, vibrating with an almost sexual desire to feed on the singular intensity of focus and rage she had the moments before a battle. But she had been younger then: more easily flattered by the attentions of a god, especially this god, infinitely more pliable to his desires, and – since it had to be said – better looking. Not, she knew, that she was anything to pass over even at thirty six; but she was aware she’d lost some of the shine of youth that had once made her magnetically irresistible in a way that left her as breathless as the men who fell into her wake, albeit for different reasons. 

 

“Empress,” a priest said as he caught sight of her, bowing as he hurried over. “We’re honored by your presence.”

 

“I’m sure you are,” she muttered, uncomfortable with the display as she usually wasn’t. She suspected it had something to do with the idea that Ares might actually be watching, and how much of a joke he’d find it. “I was actually hoping for a few minutes here alone. Any chance you can make that happen for me?”

 

“Of course. Your will, Empress.” 

 

The priest efficiently cleared out the temple of penitents, most of which were army men and nodded respectfully to her as they were roused out of their devotions. Xena waited as inconspicuously as possible in a corner. It wasn’t as though she frequented this place, her associations with Ares and her position as head of the army aside; and the last thing she needed was for her men to start getting any bright ideas about why she might be here now, especially when they’d just returned from a campaign.

 

She was alone within moments, the priests leaving after the men and closing the doors behind them. Xena took her cue and pushed off the wall. 

 

“Here goes nothing,” she said under her breath. 

 

With clumsy but still-remembered motions, she lit a candle and made an offering of one of her favorite arms: a dagger that had come in handy more than once with more than one idiot who had nevertheless managed to get a jump on her. It was personal enough, and stained with enough blood, to be the kind of offering that would at least get Ares’ attention. Xena refused to give up either her own sword – still strapped comfortingly against her back in its scabbard – and would fight Ares himself before she gave him back the chakram. 

 

“Come on, you bastard,” she said. Her quiet voice echoed in the stillness of the temple. “Is this what you’ve been waiting for all these years – me to come to you?” 

 

It would be like him, she thought grimly. It had only taken twenty years for her pride to wear down enough to do it. 

 

She waited, patient, but with every sense standing at attention. It wasn’t unlike the moments before a battle, though without the power of knowing that it was her own hand that would set the events of the next hours, or days, into motion. She couldn’t say she cared for the difference.

 

There was a flicker at the edges of her senses, familiar to her as breathing even after all these years; and she whirled around in expectation… to be met with nothing 

 

“Stooping to tricks? That’s unlike you,” she commented. “Well, these kinds of tricks, anyway. You’re not this cheap.”

 

Another flicker, this time longer and stronger. “Should’ve known an insult would be the thing that got your attention,” she said under her breath. She turned again, and her nostrils flared at the distinctive sense – something that had always superseded smell, but which her nose reacted to all the same. 

 

“Is it the name? The place?” Xena wondered aloud. “Too far away from Thrace for you, but Greece was close enough?”

 

The air crackled in front of her, and she had the vague impression of his form and the untamable power that created it for just long enough that it burned into the back of her eyelids. 

 

“ _ Ares _ ,” she called, deliberately. 

 

And finally, finally, it seemed to be enough. Slowly, and almost as if with great difficulty, he materialized into being in front of her: tall, handsome, powerful, dangerous. Xena couldn’t help a smirk at the predictability. The same as ever. 

 

“Took you long enough,” she greeted him coolly before he could turn the same words on her. 

 

“Save it,” he said shortly. It was enough of a surprise that he wasn’t immediately going on the offensive that Xena actually did. “I don’t know how much time I’ve got.”

 

Regarding him warily, she asked, “And what exactly is that supposed to mean?” 

 

“Something’s gone wrong in the realm of the immortals. I think even a puny mortal such as yourself can figure out that much.”

 

Xena masked her surprise at his easy confirmation of her suspicions, her senses immediately piqued by the implication that they went far deeper than she’d thought if he’d answered her call to say so without prompting. Still, she crossed her arms and affected an air of cool indifference. “Nice to see you’re still starting out your begging for help by insulting me.”

 

Ares snorted, unimpressed. “Sure. Okay. We’ll pretend that happened, ever. We’ve got bigger fish to fry here.” Still, he picked up the dagger Xena had laid down as sacrifice and ran it under his nose, before flipping it easily and pocketing it. “Nice dagger,” he commented. “Heard about your execution of that shamaness through the grapevine, by the way. Hope that doesn’t come back around to bite you in the ass.”

 

“You wanna elaborate?” Xena prompted impatiently. “Thought you were in a hurry or something.”

 

“And so I am,” he agreed, just as Xena noticed that the edges of his form were flickering, almost as if he weren’t really there at all. But the dagger was firm in his grip when he flipped and caught it again, and she tracked the movement with sharp eyes. 

 

“Don’t tell me,” she guessed. “Ares, god of war, is losing his powers.”

 

Xena watched as the smirk fell from his face and turned instead into irritation. “You know what? Never mind,” he said. “You can go on living your miserable life here. See how long you get away with what you’re starting up again with that irritating blonde as long as it’s not the gods who are in control.”

 

Xena was careful to keep her face impassive, though she was certain she knew who he meant. “I’m the fucking Empress of Rome, Ares,” she said instead, if only because she knew it would irritate him. “You think I could have achieved that under you?” 

 

“Oh, there’s a lot you could have achieved under me,” he said, leering. She rolled her eyes. “More to the point, you could have been Empress of the world without anyone holding your leash. Bites, doesn’t it?” 

 

“That’s why you’re here?” she deduced. “That’s why you’ve finally come after all this time?”

 

“I think why you’ve called for the first time and why I’ve come to you for the first time have a lot more to do with each other than you think they do. Let’s start with you, shall we?” he offered, magnanimous to the end even as the edges of his form flickered in and out of insubstantiality enough that Xena’s nostrils flared. “You’re why we’re here. Cleared out my temple and everything, looks like. Go.” 

 

“I – “ Xena started, and hesitated. 

 

“Oh Xena,” he said, clutching his hands to his heart and grimacing in mock pain. “That’s just not like you. At a loss for words?” 

 

“Fine,” she snapped. “Something’s off in the realm of us mortals, too. I think something’s been off for a while and I’ve just now got enough pieces to have figured it out.”

 

“In the interest of time, I won’t say I told you so.”

 

“Oh, that’s kind of you.”

 

“I wish I could help you, but there are limits to my powers.”

 

“Now Ares,” she drawled in kind. “Admitting you have limitations? That’s just not like you.”

 

“Yeah, see how well you deal when you’re trying to break through to a different world,” he told her, to which she raised an eyebrow. 

 

“Sounds a lot like an excuse.”

 

“Sounds a lot like you don’t know what it means,” he threw back. 

 

“Oh, I think I can figure it out well enough,” Xena said. 

 

“Wait, I forgot,” Ares said, snapping his fingers in mock remembrance. “Empress of Rome.”

 

“No, just not an idiot,” Xena said dryly. “Something I think you always liked in me.”

 

Ares made a face. “Don’t go getting all cocky now.”

 

“Also something I think you liked in me, but beside the point,” she said, and brushed off their bantering. “Different world. You’re saying – that this is the wrong world?” 

 

“Well, don’t start becoming an idiot now,” Ares said, rolling his eyes. 

 

Xena narrowed hers in response. Maybe aside from even her own gut feelings, there was something to what he was saying. Ares had always been brimming with power in a way that had made every kind of lust she was capable of jump and twine all together, and she’d always, always felt the way he’d held the other end of those strings. As powerful as she’d been at her zenith of independence, she’d owed a lot of it if not to him, then to what he inspired her to feel. 

 

This Ares was – almost tamed. Domesticated. It was the first time she’d seen him in twenty years, and here he was, asking, not demanding, her help as patiently as she imagined he knew how while under a time crunch and - if what he was saying was true - a kind of mortality coming for him. It seemed impossible that he might have something like genuine affection for her, but if what he was saying was true – if there really were another world out there – 

 

“I’ll do my best,” she murmured. She wasn’t imagining the fondness in his eyes, she knew now. It may have been twenty years, and he might have held her strings in one way or another at their last meeting, but she held at least one of his now. It was as good a time as any to test the theory, so she continued, “But you want your power back, you’ll have to give me more to go on. You said you came because I called - a lot of effort, I’m guessing, if what you’re saying is true. I’m the Empress of Rome, sure – but you’re a god. I know exactly what you’re capable of. You’ve got strings to pull I can’t even dream of. Odd that you need some mortal’s help.”

 

“For ‘some mortal’, you’ve managed a hell of a lot of damage,” he answered cryptically.  

 

Xena ignored it, and said, “You can’t really be saying this is my fault, whatever this is.”

 

“I can if I find out it’s true,” he returned. “Alright, fine – you really want everything? The Fates have gone off the grid. The underworld is in shambles. Tartarus is empty, and even the souls laid to rest are stuck roaming between worlds now. More and more as time goes on, I’d guess – at least, for as long as time does go on.”

 

Any one piece of that would have been alarming, even for someone whose trust in the gods had waned almost to nothing over the full course of her life. Taken altogether, it was enough to rob Xena temporarily of speech. Momentarily he disappeared, long enough that she’d taken a step forward, only for him to reappear immediately before her, wearing a mortal’s expression of tired frustration. 

 

“Oh yeah,” he agreed, and shook out his limbs unconsciously. “It’s bad. Can’t say I didn’t entirely see this coming, though.”

 

“And why’s that?”

 

“Sorry, you’ve already got everything I’ve got.” At her disbelieving look, he shrugged. “Hard times and all. You get anything else, you let me know and I’ll see what I can do.”

 

“You expect me to believe you haven’t seen me in twenty years and you’ve already given up your game?” 

 

“Funny, huh,” he said as if he didn’t really think it was funny at all. “Guess I learned to take a leap of faith somewhere along the way. Don’t start letting me down now.”

 

“I hope you don’t expect me to take the same leap of faith,” she warned. 

 

“You? Nah,” he said, but there was something under his voice that suggested otherwise. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.” 

 

She regarded him carefully, circling slowly as she gathered her thoughts and looked for the catch. There was always,  _ always  _ a catch with Ares. 

 

“Why me?” she asked finally. 

 

Again, that infernal shrug. “You called.” Her expression must have turned even more disbelieving, because he turned defensive. “The only other thing I’ve got is a hunch you’re involved. And that’s just based on history.”

 

“History,” she repeated blankly. 

 

“And that much is on a need to know basis,” he said. “At least for now. So – are you in?” 

 

“You still haven’t told me what for.” 

 

“Well, finding the Fates would be a good start,” he suggested. “Why don’t we take it from there?” 

 

“Have you got an idea of who’s stashed the hags?” she threw back. “I might be the Empress of Rome, but I’ve got my limits.”

 

Ares looked at her, and she got the sense that he was distinctly unimpressed. The long dormant part of her that had craved the power that came with his approval reared up in objection, and she raised her chin defiantly. 

 

“Maybe the Empress of Rome isn’t the person for the job,” was all he said. 

 

Xena wouldn’t know for some time if it was because he’d had enough of her or because he’d finally reached the limits of his own power, but he fizzled out of existence in that moment and didn’t reappear. Fifteen seconds passed, then thirty, and slowly Xena’s senses stood down from the edge they had always balanced on when dealing with the gods until she was just an ordinary woman, alone in an empty temple. 

 

“The Fates, huh?” she muttered to herself in the stillness. Very slightly, her voice echoed back to her.

 

Highly unlikely for them to decide to just up and disappear. Even more unlikely that anyone, mortal or immortal, would have been able to overcome their ancient power, tethered as it was deep in the earth itself. Xena might not have a lot of respect for the gods, but the Fates - the Fates were their own separate entry. No matter what a man thought about the Fates, whether he sought to control or overthrow their influence in his life, he still respected that the influence was there to begin with. 

 

Xena wasn’t a man - and she’d once thought herself exempt. She’d learned better as she’d grown older. 

 

Scowling to herself, she looked around the temple and prepared to leave one blade lighter. 

 

“Looks like my puzzle just got a lot bigger.” 

  
  
  


* * *

 

 

The play that night, if possible, was a greater success than the one the night before had been. Gabrielle flushed upon hearing the rapturous cries of the audience from backstage. 

 

“I think they liked it, boss,” Alexius said, winking and holding his mask, having exited the stage just moments before. “Want me to go peek at your new fan’s reaction?”

 

Hastily, Gabrielle grabbed his tunic and hauled him back before he could make good on that offer. “No, thank you, that’s not necessary.”

 

“Oh, why not? You always do better with time to prepare.”

 

“Stop being a gossip and go take your bow,” Gabrielle commanded, rolling her eyes in a bid to quell the roiling in her gut even as she thanked the gods that she hadn’t mentioned her stroll through the city on the Empress’ arm to anyone, especially Alexius. She’d considered a few times in the hours since that she’d imagined the whole thing. “I’ll be out shortly and we’ll all know then.”

 

Thankfully he skipped away from her grasp without a further word - if unable to stop himself from another teasing, all too knowing glance - and Gabrielle breathed out shakily. Damn Alexius. Not that she hadn’t already been wondering herself about one very particular woman’s reaction, but she could have done without it being dragged out into the open immediately before she had to go face it. 

 

Especially since she couldn’t even say with any certainty just why her reaction was so important. The hope of imperial patronage, as Alexius had suggested, sure; but this keen longing was something altogether different - something, if Gabrielle were being honest with herself, was much more aligned with the way she’d felt watching the Empress stare at her with naked desire across the night. 

 

Gabrielle wasn’t quite being honest with herself right now, mostly because she couldn’t afford to be. From the stage, Alexius announced her and the troupe, as one, turned to welcome her from the wings. Pasting on a gracious smile, she took the cue and walked onto stage. 

 

“She liked it,” Alexius’s voice came from her left over the renewed roar of the crowd. “Don’t look, boss.”

 

Gabrielle wished very much that she could elbow him in the gut or tell him to shut up. Instead, she bent to gather up the flowers being thrown to her, decisively not looking to see if any had come from above. Not that it mattered: a single rose fell at her feet from above at that moment, and with suddenly trembling fingers, Gabrielle gathered that one too before she looked up. 

 

No tears tonight: the Empress looked calmer and more self-possessed than she had last night, perhaps because the experience was less of a surprise to her or perhaps because she hadn’t reacted the same way at all; but Gabrielle thought she saw a hint of wonder around her eyes and her soft mouth, and hoped she wasn’t imagining it.

 

“She  _ really  _ liked it,” Alexius’s voice amended from a distance, just audible over the cheers of the crowd - probably his attempt at discretion.

 

Gabrielle carried the memory of the Empress’ face offstage with her, wondering again at the way this space, her own words in other actors’ mouths, seemed to bind them together in these liminal moments. Most of the other actors had already gone ahead of her to the dinner awaiting them back at the palace, and alone with her thoughts and the rose, Gabrielle hesitated. Lightly, she fingered the delicate petals of the rose lest they crumble under her touch, before decisively clipping the stem with one of the seamstress’ shears that always seemed to be laying around and tucking it into her hair. 

 

“Hey.” 

 

The sound made her jump, and Gabrielle turned to see Alexius. His face was oddly serious, and it was enough to make her apprehensive, transparent as she knew she was. 

 

But all he said was, “Be careful.”

 

His eyes weren’t on her face, but rather, in the blooming rose she’d affixed in her hair. Reflexively her fingers jumped to touch it, and she blushed. What was she thinking? Maybe she better had take it out - 

 

But Alexius’s fingers on hers stopped her. “I didn’t say, don’t do it,” he said. “I said, be careful.”

 

The irony wasn’t lost on Gabrielle. She hated this city; hated this Empire; had wanted to avoid this trip specifically because of the way it would require her to play this game, climb these ladders, begin dealing in favors and secrets when all she wanted was the freedom and anonymity of writing in her own home or walking on the open road. 

 

And yet here she was, doing - whatever this was. It was inadvisable at best, deadly at worst. The Roman Empire wasn’t known for its kindnesses, no matter the purported allegiance of Caesar with the common people. 

 

“What am I doing?” she whispered. 

 

Alexius shook his head, stilled her trembling fingers, brought them to his lips for a brotherly kiss. “I sure don’t know. Be brave, but don’t be stupid.”

 

Sound advice. “Don’t be stupid,” she repeated to herself and steeled herself. Right. “Shall we go, then?” 

 

Alexius offered her his arm in a gallant display and, she suspected, partly to get her to laugh. It half succeeded, and she took his arm gratefully. “Where’s Euphrosyne? It’s a shame you’re stuck with an old widow on your arm instead.”

 

“You do an awfully good job of playing the blushing maiden for an old widow,” he teased her gently as they walked into the street, the Tiber running merrily along at their backs. “And she’s already gone on ahead.”

 

“Is the whole crew there without us?” Gabrielle grumbled. “You’d think some of them would have had the courtesy to wait.”

 

“And what am I, two-day-old pig liver?” he said with mock affrontery. “Besides, they’re  _ actors _ . They know how to set you up for a grand entrance.”

 

“Ah. Is that what it is.” 

 

It was a short walk back to the palace from the theater, and it was a nice enough night that they declined the offers of transportation that passing charioteers and cart-drivers, who had seen their fine attire and hoping to earn a few denarii. In short order, they had arrived and come before the grand atrium in which they’d been formally received the night before; but tonight, Gabrielle could see beyond the rich silk drapings gathered to either side of the doorway, a full-fledged Roman party was getting well under way. Half-naked girls danced amidst jugglers and mimes, both performing to the music of auloi and citharae, while the well-dressed elite lounged on couches or mingled in between. Food and drink floated everywhere on trays borne by yet more slaves, and the mood was already hovering just below the line of raucous. 

 

Gabrielle sighed, and glanced down at her own modest attire. She’d been assigned a slave to attend her while she was here - a girl called Clodia that reminded her too much of her sister for Gabrielle to want to avail herself of, even if she hadn’t detested slavery on principle. But Clodia had looked so pleadingly at her when she’d started to make herself ready for this evening that Gabrielle had relented, feeling uneasy the entire time that Clodia had, with a relieved sort of cheerfulness, picked out her dress, done her hair up in mounds of curls, and painted her face. 

 

“It is the Roman style,” she’d said. “A different dress would be better, but this will do.”

 

“Uh, boss?” Alexius prompted now. “There’s a difference between making a fashionable entrance and never going in at all.”

 

Gabrielle smiled apologetically. “Sorry. I just - it’s still hard not to feel like a country bumpkin sometimes. Especially here.”

 

“You? With your beauty? Never.” He cocked his head and waggled his eyebrows. “Besides, I have a feeling you’ll knock at least one person dead.”

 

“Stop it. You’re making it worse.” As if Gabrielle needed the reminder that the Empress would surely be looking for her if she was right. Vaguely nauseous, her hand shakily touched the flower in her hair again before Alexius slapped it away. 

 

“I could say the same for you,” he said knowingly. “Come on. Let’s do this.”

 

Their entrance was noticed almost immediately, and gracefully, Alexius disengaged Gabrielle’s arm to let her accept her accolades. 

 

“Well done,” said one man, shaking her hand fervently for an extended enough period of time that Gabrielle finally put her other hand over his to cease the motion. He laughed, somewhat nervously, and said, “What an honor to meet you. You’ve been such an inspiration to me, you know.”

 

“I’m sorry, you seem to be familiar with me but I don’t have your name,” Gabrielle prompted, eyeing him curiously. He seemed an atypical sort to be at a party like this that accommodate these kinds of circles: young and boyish, teetering right on the cusp of manhood, though his height and good looks no doubt helped him fall more on the “man” side if he wanted to - as boys were often in a hurry to do. 

 

“Forgive my young friend. We frequently tell him he has no manners,” said another man who had come up behind him and was slapping him on the shoulder. “He’s Publius Vergilius Maro, and he’s adored you from afar since your works started coming to Rome. Pulled a few strings to get in here tonight.”

 

Well, that would explain it, even if it did leave her feeling a little unsettled. “I didn’t know anyone had read my work in Rome before now,” Gabrielle admitted. “It’s honestly still hard for me to believe that I’m here at all.”

 

“No, no, you’re much admired in Roman literary circles,” protested the older man. “Forgive me, now I’m the one acting a boor. Quintus Horatius Flaccus.”

 

“Horace!” Gabrielle exclaimed, suddenly wide-eyed as she shook his hand in turn

 

He laughed graciously. “It seems you’ve heard of me. I’m honored.”

 

“I think everyone has heard of you,” Gabrielle said, laughing in kind. “At least, everyone I know has heard of you. We studied you at the Academy.”

 

“In Athens?” he asked, eyebrow raised in question, and Gabrielle nodded. “Hmm. I’ll take it as a good omen that my work has made it into the curricula as far away as Greece. I presume you haven’t been introduced to anyone else in our literary circles over here?” When Gabrielle shook her head, he took her arm. “Well, let us change that now.”

 

Gabrielle had her hands shaken and lips kissed in greeting more times than she could count over the next hour as Horace took it upon himself to be her guide through the various strata of elite that were represented in the room, beginning, as promised, with the writers and artists. Upon introduction to a painter, another woman called Iaia who hailed from the easternmost reaches of the old Greek colonies, Iaia had taken a single look at Virgil, who was still hovering hopefully near Gabrielle’s side, and taken Gabrielle’s other arm. 

 

“There, we’re friends now,” she said, easily kissing Gabrielle’s lips. “Allow me?”

 

“Uh,” Gabrielle stammered.

 

Iaia laughed. “Oh, you’re charming. It’s so dreadfully full of men here, isn’t it?” she said under her breath, as if conspiring with Gabrielle. “We women must take care of each other.”

 

It was enough to set Gabrielle at ease and make her smile. She squeezed Iaia’s arm. “I suppose we must.”

 

And so, on Horace’s and Iaia’s arms, she was whirled around the room and presented to senators, dignitaries, priests - everyone, it seemed, but the very innermost Imperial circle, and all of whom were eager to talk with her. Gabrielle suspected it had as much to do with the fact that she was something of a novelty as with anything she’d written - she’d had five remarks and counting on her inescapable accent while speaking Latin, and a few questions about her relation to Greece’s storied past. She tried not to let it bother her, having traveled enough to know that Romans were bad tourists in general, but that imperialists were worse ones still.  

 

“I understand you won the Dionysia last year? Impressive,” remarked a senator who had been introduced as Marcus Junius Brutus. “Especially for a woman.”

 

“I took second place,” Gabrielle corrected him, which he waved off.

 

“No less impressive,” he said. “And your plays from the previous two nights, they were part of the program?” 

 

“Yes. My troupe will be performing all of the plays I entered in this year’s Dionysia, in fact, so you’ll get to see them all.”

 

“Can you give us a hint of what’s to come?” Virgil asked excitedly, still somewhere close at hand.

 

“That would be telling,” Gabrielle demurred to the exaggerated groans of the people who gathered around her. “But if you’re tired of tragedies, tomorrow there will be a comedy for a change of pace.”

 

That announcement at least was met with cheers, and Gabrielle smiled wryly. 

 

“Tell us, to settle a bet,” implored another. “We’re curious as to why you write so many stories about the underworld.”

 

“So many?” Gabrielle asked, a little surprised as she considered tonight’s play - the hero’s violent past returning for him even as he tried to brave underworld to find her - and then laughed self-consciously. “I suppose you’re right. I don’t know. I’d never considered it before, but now I guess I’ll always be wondering whenever I sit down to write. What’s the bet?” she asked, curious.

 

“Whether Greece is being overrun by ghosts the way Rome is,” was the equally curious reply. “You’ve not heard?” 

 

Gabrielle hadn’t, which must have been apparent in her face. “Ah, well. It’s all just stories,” the man said, waving it off. “It seems like every other person in Rome has sighted a ghost recently, or knows someone who has. Foolish talk on the street is that Pluto has lost control of the underworld.”

 

“Really?” Gabrielle asked, fascinated despite herself. “I wonder why.”

 

“Why the dead have staged a jailbreak? Or why the stories?” Virgil asked. 

 

“Well, both,” Gabrielle said. “Stories don’t usually arise out of nothing. There’s always some seed.”

 

“Spoken like a true dealer in the craft,” said Horace. “Regardless of the origin, I think we can all pray that it’s not true, considering who was sent there this morning.”

 

“Ah. If anyone can get out of the underworld, it’s her,” scoffed the senator. “I might almost believe she’d incited the revolt of the dead or broken Pluto’s power if she’d been sent there sooner.”

 

“Who knows?” threw in another man. “Perhaps Pluto set the dead loose among us because she was appointed in the first place, and now she’s just helping the cause.”

 

This was met with titters and half-hearted shushes. 

 

“You’re talking about the pontifex maxima?” Gabrielle asked cautiously, idly wondering if the Empress had heard this gossip. 

 

“None other,” said Horace. “May she rot in Tartarus. Unnatural woman.”

 

Brutus coughed and elbowed him discreetly. Gabrielle hadn’t know the pontifex maxima, of course, and believed that she’d only had a glimpse of her last night in the gallery from the stage, but she still felt a stab of sympathy at Horace’s words and the realization that not even a full day ago, she’d mingled with these people in this very room. It seemed that they hated her for reasons that went beyond her attempted murder of the Empress, which was something at least that Gabrielle could understand, especially given how genuinely adored the Empress seemed to be in Rome; and while Gabrielle was curious, she had no desire to embroil herself in politics on that level. 

 

Fortunately, Horace was happy to continue without her input. “The only question now is who will replace her? With any sense, we’ll be back to the right way of doing things soon, and all this hysterical nonsense will be reigned in.”

 

“Yes, with any sense,” Brutus agreed mildly, and clapped him on the shoulder. He caught Gabrielle’s eyes and rolled his own a little, and she laughed a little under her breath. 

 

“Ghosts notwithstanding, you really should have a full tour of the city before you leave,” said Virgil. 

 

He was clearly on the cusp of offering himself up, and without thinking, Gabrielle said, “Actually, I was already shown around this afternoon.”

 

“Oh? By whom?” Virgil asked, his face falling though he tried to keep his voice light.

 

“Uh,” Gabrielle said, casting around for a plausible lie and finding herself uncharacteristically stumped. “Just a friendly Roman.”

 

Horace grinned as if he were in on a secret, and briefly, Gabrielle was seized by a fear that he did. “A friendly Roman, eh?” he said. “A good afternoon in such lovely company as you. Does this anonymous citizen have a name?”

 

“I think they prefer to remain anonymous,” Gabrielle murmured, shifting on her feet.

 

“Hmm. Well, health to him. I hope he’s good looking, at least!” 

 

Gabrielle didn’t care to correct his assumption that it had been a tryst with some man. Virgil had become sullen, which suited her well enough, and she cast her thoughts to the heavens. What she wouldn’t give for her own friends and their own familiar tavernes. Homer and Euripides wouldn’t have failed her here; although she considered that maybe that made this situation her own fault. Of course, Virgil presumably had some ties here, and was not some nameless Greek man trying his luck in an Athenian taverna who Gabrielle could dismiss without repercussions, with the tacit understanding between Gabrielle and her friends that, for reasons Gabrielle hadn’t been able to articulate even to herself, she didn’t want the attentions of men. 

 

At least, not those kinds of attentions.  

 

From across the room at that moment, the Empress caught her eye, seemingly as if she had known exactly where to find her. Slowly, and very slightly, she smiled. With effort, and a stomach churning from an inexplicable attack of nerves, Gabrielle broke away from the commanding power of that blue gaze and smiled briefly at Horace.

 

“Yes,” she managed. “Very good looking.” 

 

It seemed to have gone unnoticed by Horace, who was already responding to some challenge with a bawdy rhyme; but there was a sudden pressure on her other arm, and Gabrielle looked to see Iaia looking knowingly back. 

 

“She is, isn’t she?” she whispered. “She’s broken half the hearts in Rome between the devotion and terror she inspires in equal measure.”

 

“I don’t know what you mean,” Gabrielle lied, unconvincingly. 

 

Iaia only laughed and let her. “We’re all surprised she hasn’t whisked you away again the way she did last night, but I suppose there’s more we don’t know. Ah, well. Only be careful, my new friend.”

 

Gabrielle warred with her instinct to remain fastidiously quiet and the desire to know just what had been said about her, and by whom, that was already gnawing at her mind.

 

“Is there a particular reason I should be careful?” she carefully asked as a compromise.

 

Iaia appeared unimpressed, and if Gabrielle were being honest with herself, rightfully so. “Come now, Gabrielle. Look around you. Rome has the ability to elevate you beyond your wildest dreams or take your life within a hour of each other. The Empress?” Iaia snuck a peek in her direction again, and Gabrielle followed suit. “Even if she has only the desire to do one of those things, remember that even her power comes from someone else.”

 

It was a sober reminder, and a distinction that Gabrielle hadn’t really made to herself yet. Without quite meaning to, her eyes flickered again to the Empress where was seated on one of the dining couches that populated the room. This time her gaze wasn’t drawn by Gabrielle’s, as she was already in the middle of a conversation with the man on her right who Gabrielle didn’t know.

 

The eyes that were on her when she discovered them nearly made her jump in surprise. Caesar himself, seated to Xena’s left, was observing her quietly almost as if he knew something about her that Gabrielle didn’t even know about herself. Hurriedly, Gabrielle broke eye contract and demurred. When she looked again after another two minutes of conversation she was too distracted to participate in, he was caught up in conversation with his wife and the man she had been talking to, and all of them were distracted by the sinuous movements of a woman who appeared to have been called over to dance for them. 

 

Gabrielle breathed out a sigh of relief, but was still shaky with nerves or the recent memory of them to be good company. It was a smaller relief, but a relief all the same, when someone whose name she’d forgotten commented that she didn’t look well. 

 

“I’m fine, just a bit overtired, I think,” she said. Iaia squeezed her arm with her own in silent question, and Gabrielle shook her head imperceptibly. “There’s several more days of revelry still to come. I think I should maybe take it as a sign and let you enjoy the rest of tonight’s festivities without me bringing the mood down.”

 

There were immediate cries of protest, which Gabrielle still swelled to hear even through her growing desire to escape. “No, no, I really should,” she insisted, and they accepted it soon enough.

 

“Allow me to escort you,” Brutus offered. Sensing her hesitation, he smiled. “Nothing untoward, I promise.”

 

The offer seemed genuine enough. Gabrielle knew little about Brutus beyond what the rest of the world did – namely, his distinguished military record, his honor, and his complete devotion to the Empire and the man at its head – but couldn’t imagine that he’d have much of an interest in her regardless. Even the Empress had mentioned his name with a fond sort of exasperation earlier that afternoon, and Gabrielle couldn’t imagine that she would have done so without there being some kind of trust between her and this man.  

 

In any case, it wasn’t an offer Gabrielle could afford to refuse without offending him, and maybe even by extension the Empire itself. 

 

“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to have someone show me back through these labyrinthine halls, anyway,” she allowed. Iaia squeezed her arm again before she disengaged it - in warning? A look at her face didn’t reveal her message - and Gabrielle accepted the arm Brutus had held out for her in trade. “Good night,” she told the rest of the group. 

 

They called out their own farewells after them both, and Gabrielle was relieved to note the lack of knowing looks being passed between them as they turned away. Brutus seemed to notice this and laughed. 

 

“Trust me, no one in there seeing you leave with me is going to assume that I’m doing anything other than escorting you to your rooms,” he told her. “I have a reputation, of sorts. Yours is certainly safe with me.”

 

“Fair enough,” Gabrielle murmured, a little embarrassed at having been caught out so immediately. “Thank you for doing so, then.”

 

“It’s my pleasure. You’re… an unordinary woman.” 

 

Gabrielle wasn’t sure how to take that comment. She looked up to find his eyes studying her as if he were trying to figure something about her out, and had discovered that he was missing pieces he hadn’t expected to be. “You’re not what I expected from your plays.”

 

“Did you expect to discover that I am an ordinary woman from my plays?” she asked, curious.

 

He had the grace to chuckle and duck his head. “That, or something more like it, I suppose. Maybe that’s why you fascinate the Empress the way you do.”

 

Gabrielle caught herself before she tripped even as her insides suddenly froze with the awareness that they had suddenly entered dangerous waters, even as the reason for escort started to come into focus.

 

“I’m certain you’ve noticed,” Brutus continued. “And I’m equally certain that you’re fascinated by her in turn. Who wouldn’t be? She’s also quite an unordinary woman. An extraordinary woman, anyone would say.” Brutus was quiet, and Gabrielle held her breath, unsure of how to respond. 

 

“Friendship is a good thing to have. Especially when those friends are in high places. Well,” Brutus said, laughing lightly. “The highest places there are.”

 

“Perhaps,” Gabrielle said quietly. “Friendship usually begins with a kindness. The Empress has been kind to me. That’s all.”

 

“She has,” Brutus agreed. “I do know after all who your guide this afternoon was – and whose identity you protected so assiduously this evening.” Gabrielle tensed again, but Brutus merely continued. “Better that you hadn’t mentioned it at all. Better still that the Empress didn’t insist on believing that Rome’s spies are better than her disguises. But I suppose, as I always have, that it’s something of a lark for her. It’s difficult for her not to have her independence, even here, where she’s afforded the most freedom of anyone in the world.”

 

The comment struck Gabrielle as intensely condescending, not only because of the offhandedness of it, but because of what it meant - that even Rome itself didn’t trust its Empress. Gabrielle felt a pang of sympathy: head of the army, beloved of the people, and still trapped by a web so large it could be mistaken for freedom up close. 

 

“You do realize that in saying so, you’re acknowledging that she was freer before she came to Rome,” Gabrielle pointed out. 

 

“Rome is the world,” Brutus said. “Any freedoms you can conceive of outside of Rome are just illusions.” He looked at her. “You would know, wouldn’t you? You lived through the Macedonian conquest under Xena herself. And you lived through the subsequent Roman conquest.”

 

Gabrielle’s life certainly wasn’t a secret; but she couldn’t help the uneasiness that his casual revelation of information she’d never given him - or anyone in Rome, for that matter, save the Empress earlier in the day - provoked in her. 

 

“Macedonia was Xena’s before it was Rome’s,” she said as calmly as she could. “And Rome didn’t conquer it so much as subsumed it as part of the establishment of the Empire through the claim she already had on it.”

 

“An interesting delineation,” he acknowledged. “More interesting still that you seem to a loyalty to her. Preexisting, perhaps? Or perhaps you met when you were still a child and she was still a barbarian marauder?”  

 

“Even if any of that were true, you can’t be suggesting that it’s a concern to you that I have a loyalty to the Roman Empress,” Gabrielle said. “Is she not Rome?” 

 

“Oh, near enough,” Brutus agreed genially. 

 

“Near enough,” Gabrielle echoed, and let what had gone unspoken remain in the silence between them. 

 

Brutus seemed to appreciate it, and after a moment broke the silence again. “All roads lead to Rome, Gabrielle.”

 

“You’re saying that all freedom is an illusion, then?”

 

Brutus shrugged. “I suppose it comes down to a matter of definition. It sounds as if you’re equating Roman sovereignty with slavery.” Gabrielle tensed at the accusation, but Brutus only waved a forgiving hand and said, “I didn’t mean to discuss these things with you tonight.”

 

“Yet here we are,” Gabrielle said. “What did you intend, exactly?” 

 

Brutus smiled gently. “I think you know.”

 

“Is this a warning?”

 

“It’s a friendly chat,” he said, and Gabrielle was surprised to see that he appeared genuinely wounded. “Gabrielle, I’d like to be your friend too, if you’d let me. You said friendship begins with a kindness.”

 

“So it does,” Gabrielle acknowledged carefully. “Will you do me the kindness of telling me where this warning comes from?” 

 

“It’s no warning,” Brutus insisted. “Not yet.”

 

Gabrielle was doubtful of that much, but she nodded. “Hence the kindness.”

 

“You understand me, then,” Brutus said, appearing relieved. 

 

“I’m not sure what I understand,” Gabrielle admitted. “But I suppose I appreciate your honesty. They do say you’re an honest man, Brutus. Honorable.”

 

Brutus bowed his head in acknowledgement. “I suppose I can’t earn that assessment from you in a single conversation.”

 

“I appreciate – “ Gabrielle began, and then ruefully shook her head with a hint of an equally rueful smile. “I appreciate whatever this was. Thank you for escorting me, but I think I know the way now. Good night.”

 

Whatever else Brutus was, he was honorable enough to let her go without further question. “Good night,” he echoed. “I meant what I said – it’s been a pleasure to meet you this evening. And I do hope we can be friends.”

 

Gabrielle, who certainly didn’t hope for Brutus as an enemy, said, “Me, too.” In his nod she could see him accept her agreement for exactly what it was. 

 

She was relieved to discover that her assertion that she could find the rest of the way back to her rooms wasn’t a lie – not that there weren’t slaves in abundance scurrying through the halls who would point her if she really needed to ask. The halls were lit well enough that she could distinguish landmarks she’d noted on her way through in the daylight, and she was in the residential guest wing before long. 

 

Still, her conversation with Brutus plagued every step. Had he really felt it was so necessary to warn her away from association with the Empress? Surely not everyone the Empress met merited a warning like that. Gabrielle couldn’t imagine that she wouldn’t know about it if that were the case. Nor could she imagine that the Empress would be too happy to learn that it was happening at all, even if this conversation with Gabrielle turned out to be an isolated incident. 

 

Which meant that, somehow, Gabrielle had earned some special attention beyond simply the Empress’, likely well before she’d done something as stupid and brazen as putting the Empress’ rose in her hair and wearing it like a token, a signal. More worryingly, it also meant that Iaia’s somewhat friendlier warning earlier in the evening hadn’t been out of proportion at all. 

 

_ Remember that even her power comes from somewhere else,  _ Iaia’s voice echoed in her mind. 

 

It was a troubling thought precisely because of how true it was. Gabrielle wondered how the Empress herself dealt with it – how a warlord as fearsome and notorious as Xena, called by some the Conqueror and by others the Warrior Princess before the title of ‘Empress’ had subsumed both, had accepted that she was under Rome’s thrall along with the rest of them. Perhaps, Gabrielle considered, she never had; and she couldn’t say why this idea was almost more troubling to her.

 

She was lost enough in thought that she collided with another body and would have gone sprawling if not for a hand darting out, lightning fast, to grab her forearm and steady her. 

 

“Empress,” Gabrielle gasped, not only at the surprise but at the proximity. The Empress had pulled her back to standing and not moved away herself.

 

Her eyes were looking - almost lost, if Gabrielle had to put a word to it, and out here, away from the revelry, it was as if she’d already taken off her guardedness for the evening and not had time to put it back on again before she’d collided with Gabrielle. Her fingers seemed to raise themselves of their own accord, and Gabrielle’s heart beat alarmingly quickly when she realized that their destination was the rose still adorning Gabrielle’s hair. 

 

“I don’t understand,” she said, her voice small, her thumb and forefinger rubbing a petal between them while Gabrielle held her breath. “Do I know you? Have I met you before? Perhaps in Macedonia during the conquest?” 

 

“No,” Gabrielle said. “I don’t think so. I was young. And I would have remembered you, I think.”

 

But her eyes didn’t leave Gabrielle’s face, and something in Gabrielle rose up, slow and proud, like a flower unfurling under the sun in response to the intensity of her scrutiny. 

 

“I conquered your village,” the Empress said. “Poteidaia. I remember it.”

 

Slowly, Gabrielle nodded, surprised at the turn of conversation. “You did.”

 

“Don’t you hate me? Many do in Macedonia.” 

 

Gabrielle considered the question and the assertion. The Empress’ name hadn’t been beloved in the territories that had been united under the name Macedonia - a joke, since its ruler had been Thracian - but it in Poteidaia it hadn’t been hated either. Life had gone on. The language of administration had changed, and Gabrielle had been one of the few that had determinedly applied herself to learning it. 

 

“I don’t hate you,” she said simply. 

 

The Empress’ hand left the rose, and her fingertips skimmed down Gabrielle’s forehead, temple, cheek, before it rested under her chin and urged her face up again. Bravely, Gabrielle lifted her eyes too and found the Empress looking back, her blue gaze intense and binding in the moonlight. She was stunningly beautiful, so much so that made Gabrielle ache in ways she could name but for reasons she could not.  

 

“Why do you feel so familiar to me?” the Empress murmured. “You must know.”

 

Did she think Gabrielle was toying with her after all, or preparing to ply her towards her own ends? Is this what Brutus had seen, that he’d taken it for the danger it wasn’t, not with Gabrielle? Gabrielle’s hand lifted to clasp her wrist, and as if without thought, the Empress turned it so that their hands clasped easily. Just as easily, Gabrielle brought their joined hands to her heart as if it might soothe the ache that had begun to bloom there in earnest. 

 

“I don’t,” she said helplessly. 

 

She wanted to repeat the Empress’ words back to her, to do something to erase her doubts that Gabrielle didn’t also sense something binding them together, this inexplicable sense that she must have known this woman forever and somehow forgotten it. Here in the moonlight, with the Empress looking at her like this, it was easy to forget their positions and the distance between them, and imagine that they had met each other’s eyes a thousand times before, just like this, as something approaching equals. 

 

It would be easy to lead her by the hand she still held into Gabrielle’s rooms. The Empress wouldn’t protest, she knew beyond a doubt. The Empress would come eagerly. Gabrielle didn’t have the words to say what she wanted, but that –  _ that _ – 

 

Shaking, her other hand reached up to brush the Empress’ cheek, the corner of her eye. Her eyes closed at the touch, before something in her face changed. The difference made Gabrielle freeze. 

 

When the Empress spoke, her voice was hoarse. “I should be going.” Gabrielle dropped her hands and stepped back, but before she could flee with her own excuse, the Empress caught both of Gabrielle’s hands in her own. “You’ve done nothing wrong,” she said. “Do you understand?”

 

The intensity had returned to her gaze with a swiftness and insistence that left Gabrielle unable to lie. “No,” she said honestly, because there was almost nothing about this situation that she did.

 

Her response made the Empress chuckle. Unexpectedly, in a motion that seemed even to surprise herself, she raised one of Gabrielle’s hands to her lips and kissed it. 

 

“Good night, Gabrielle,” she said with a shortness that was at odds with the intimacy of her gesture, and departed into the shadows of the palace without further explanation. 

 

Her own rooms were dark when Gabrielle finally entered them. Gabrielle allowed herself to slump against the closed door for a long moment before lighting a candle and dressing for bed. Yet all she could think about as she did was how she had passed the night before: terrified by something she couldn’t name rising up in her, wanting but unwilling to face it again in the open expression of the woman waiting for her sign across the distance between their two balconies. 

 

Decisively, she climbed out of bed and followed the path of moonlight where it cut across the floor as far as she could follow - through the sheer curtains, across the threshold, into the night. The expectation that had spiraled high and exhilarating in only a few seconds collapsed just as suddenly at the realization that she was alone in the night. The Empress’ balcony was empty. 

 

Unable to decide if what was left behind was more relief or disappointment, Gabrielle nevertheless straightened her spine and settled in. Ambient noise from the surrounding streets and the never-quiet Forum drifted toward her on the still night air, and she closed her eyes. Her fingers found the rose in her hair, and, at length, pulled it out and let it rest between her palms.

 

This city might well ruin her before it was through with her, but tonight - tonight she would wait.

  
  



	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Ides of March! I've taken forever with this one, I know; my excuses are valid but paltry. I don't intend for there to be any gap quite like that between updates again. Thanks for sticking with me!

The next day dawned bright and clear: a good omen, Xena would have thought if she’d believed in them. She’d long since accepted that it didn’t really matter what she believed, only what others did, and how she could use that belief to her advantage. So it was in war; so it was in politics. 

 

Still, she acknowledged that the continued mild weather during Cerealia was uncommonly good fortune. There was a historical tendency for events in Rome to be rained out in the fourth month - an unhelpable danger when the festival in question was in honor of the goddess of earth and grain and growing things, but all the same, she’d rather not watch the ludi unfold in the rain and muck and filth it generated in the city. 

 

The crowds were already filling the streets below when a knock sounded on her outer door. 

 

“Empress, the senator Marcus Junius Brutus.”

 

“Brutus,” she greeted him, standing from her desk. “Do come in.”

 

“You wanted to see me, Empress?” he said with a short bow. The confusion on his face was almost endearing. It was rare that she asked for an audience with Brutus outside of Caesar’s auspices, though she was well within her rights to do so. The man was blindly loyal to her husband - not altogether a bad thing, except for the way it left her on the outside of that loyalty. 

 

“I did,” she confirmed, snagging an apple from a dish of fruit and lounging in a gilded chair as she gestured for him to do the same. “Breakfast? I can have some brought up.” 

 

As expected, he stayed on his feet. “Thank you, I’ve already eaten this morning.”

 

Business as usual. She smiled. “I wanted to know what you and your network of spies have heard about all these growing rumors of ghosts in the street. The underworld broken open and deserted. All that.”

 

He looked a bit taken aback. She smirked and took another bite of her apple. “Surprised, Brutus?” 

 

“Uh,” he stammered, “only that you’re coming to me with this request. We both know you have your own network.”

 

“So we do,” she agreed. “But let’s just say I’m interested in getting several points of view.” 

 

“Are you… concerned about something in particular?” 

 

“Call it a general interest,” she said. “It’s reaching a point I’m starting to worry about mass hysteria. There are still several days left of Cerealia and Rome is full to the brim with tourists. Stress tends to make superstition run even more rampant in these parts than it already does, I’ve found.” 

 

Brutus overlooked the dig at the superstitious nature of his countrymen, as he always did. “You’re worried about crowd control?” he parsed. “We do have civil servants placed strategically around the city as we always do for the larger feria, just as a precaution.”

 

“Partly,” she conceded. “And partly I love a good mystery the way I love needlepoint.” At his searching look, she clarified, “I  _ don’t.  _ I want to root this thing out so that I can stop worrying that some madman with a knife who’s convinced he’s seeing ghosts tries to stab me in the streets.”

 

“Ah. This is related to the assassination attempt.” 

 

“Of course it is,” Xena replied. “Only a fool would accept without question that she acted alone and without external influence. And a woman as powerful as she was had her fingers in just about every pot in the Empire, as you’re certainly aware. Did you know that augury is reported to be failing the priests? Not of just one temple, but of many?”

 

“I wasn’t aware you’d become interested in augury.”

 

“I’m not,” Xena acknowledged. “But the people are. We’re already looking at another inexplicably bad wheat harvest, it won’t take much for them to connect what they can see to what they can’t. The next thing you know we’ll have another Gracchi brother among us. And the last thing I need is for somebody, or some group of somebodies, with a bone to pick using a wave of hysteria as cover for the actual assassination attempt and getting away with it.” 

 

Truthfully, even if Xena hadn’t already had confirmation enough from Ares that some very important strings were being pulled in the universe, she would have sought resolution for this problem the same way. As hated as Alti was, power was the true currency in Rome, and she’d had it. Xena had no doubt that there was some faction waiting in the wings for a chance - to do what, she didn’t know. 

 

Hadn’t even she at one point been one of those who had trailed after Alti and the smell of her power? She knew better than most how terribly potent it was, how far its reach extended beyond the limits of what could be seen.

 

“Understood,” Brutus said. “Although you might help yourself by not dodging the men assigned to protect you.” 

 

“I didn’t dodge the men  _ I _ assigned to protect me,” Xena said, “but that’s neither here nor there. I’m not the one dodging the question my Empress has put to me. I grow weary, Brutus.” 

 

He huffed a short laugh. “I’m sure you do. Yes, I’ve had reports on this unrest. There doesn’t appear to be any particular pattern to it - it’s hit pockets all over Rome, patrician and plebeian, rich and poor altogether. It didn’t seem to be an organized problem. If the ghosts of the dead truly are roaming the streets with malicious intent, they’re in sore need of a leader or advisor.” 

 

“I had thought you somewhat more devout than to profane the dead,” Xena noted. “Or provoke the gods.” 

 

“What? No, that’s not what I meant - ”

 

But Xena waved him off. “Save your breath, I’m only teasing you, Brutus.” Before he could register his inevitable protest, she continued. “Whatever your beliefs about what this phenomenon is or isn’t, I want you to act as though it’s real until we’ve gotten to the bottom of this.”

 

“Empress?” 

 

“Those people out there - in ever growing numbers - believe it’s true. We’re doing ourselves a disservice to respond in any other way, else we’ll never get ahead of it.” 

 

“With respect, if Pluto has really abandoned the underworld and the souls of the dead are moving among us at will, I have my doubts that we can get ahead of it.”

 

Privately, Xena agreed, though that wasn’t her strategy. Brutus didn’t need to know that, though, and so she instead rose and clapped him on the shoulder. “Excellent, you’re already getting in the right mindset,” she said before she turned to refill her cup with more diluted wine. “I’m glad to hear it.”

 

“Are there certain intervals at which you’d like reports?” Brutus asked, resigned.

 

“Let’s start with daily while the feria is going on and take it from there.”

 

Brutus bowed his head. “As you will. Is there anything else, Empress?” 

 

“What?” Xena said, mock disappointed. “Tired of me already?” But he caught himself before he responded this time, and merely smiled at her wryly. Xena couldn’t be too disappointed; she’d had enough fun from him already and it wasn’t yet the fourth hour. “No, Brutus, that will be all. I’ll see you at the ludi, I assume?” 

 

“I’ll be there.” 

 

“Oh - there is one thing,” she said as she caught herself. “The playwright Gabrielle will be my guest this afternoon. Will you do me the favor of escorting her? You seemed to make an impression on each other last night.” 

 

“The playwright?” Brutus repeated mildly.

 

For a politician, he still had much to learn when it came to concealing his reactions. “Is there a problem?” Xena asked pointedly, at which point he snapped himself out of his owlish impersonation. 

 

“No, Empress, of course not. You have grown rather fond of her, I think.” 

 

Xena narrowed her eyes. “Is there something you wanted to ask in there, Brutus?” 

 

“Just that it would be… unfortunate… if your fondness were misplaced.” 

 

“Ah,” Xena said, allowing herself to smile. “My husband’s foremost advisor, taking it upon himself to lecture me about the perils of a broken heart.” 

 

“You’re the one describing it as such,” was all Brutus said, calm as ever. “Take care. I’m not the only one who has noted your fondness.” 

 

“No,” Xena replied softly. “I should think not. Bad enough that you assume that I’m no better than a common whore; worse still that you presume to speak to me as though I am.” 

 

It was enough to make him backtrack. “Empress, of course, it’s not for me to question - “

 

“Then don’t,” she suggested, her smile thinning. She retained that smile, letting an edge creep into it with slight narrowing of her eyes. In it, she could see Brutus reading, correctly her meaning:  _ I am the Empress of Rome, and before that, the Conqueror of Macedonia. Call me backwater if you must, but I have never kowtowed to challenges, and certainly not challenges such as yours.  _

 

After a long, hesitant moment, Brutus bowed and saw himself out. 

 

“Hmm,” she murmured, and took another sip of her wine. She’d wondered how long it would be before she’d have to deal with Brutus’ good intentions, though she was surprised that it was happening quite so soon. Dealing with her husband as he did had made him feel he had license to be more outspoken with her than she’d allow from almost anyone else; but she had to admit that while it did chafe at her patience, it had given her valuable insight into the current workings of Caesar’s mind on more than one occasion. 

 

Not that she really needed it in this instance. For all the complaints about her obviousness, Caesar had been the one last night unable to keep his eyes off of the playwright. 

 

The fact that the playwright had been mentioned by both Alti and Ares - albeit obliquely - had been something Xena hadn’t quite been able to attribute to coincidence. It had become obvious to Xena that there was more to her than met the eye, but she hadn’t considered until that point that maybe it was something insidious. She’d been acting too much the lovestruck girl for that, charmed too easily by good looks and affability and, maybe, if Xena were being honest, a connection to a home she’d long left behind.  _ Cuntstruck,  _ crasser men would call it, and if Xena were really being honest with herself, maybe there was an element of that too. 

 

And so Xena had resolved to leave her to her own devices for the evening, the better to observe her and the company she sought, and if she were lucky, divine her intentions. It had been to her own surprise that her observation had shifted to focus squarely on her husband.

 

Xena had had her share of flirtations in the eight years she’d been Empress and Caesar’s wife. For that matter, so had Caesar. Never before had something bothered Caesar to this extent. Certainly not something in such an infantile stage. 

 

It was, Xena realized slowly throughout the course of the evening, almost as if he too shared whatever knowledge Alti and Ares had had. Meanwhile, Gabrielle herself was being whirled about the room and introduced to Rome’s glittering literati, cheeks flushed with attention, success, and wine as she charmed them all as effortlessly as she had Xena. 

 

“The playwright seems to have lost her thrall over you,” Caesar had said not long after Gabrielle had left, escorted by Brutus. “Is she so quick to lose your favor?” 

 

She’d tilted her head lazily and regarded him, slave girls whirling around them in the dance they’d been commanded to perform. “Not at all. Another good play tonight, don’t you think?” 

 

“If you go for that sort of thing,” he’d dismissed, but his eyes had remained keen on her until he’d excused himself to attend to some matter of state she had no interest in and she took the opportunity to excuse herself for some fresh air - and run, quite literally, into Gabrielle herself, as though the Fates themselves had aligned it. 

 

In her eyes, Xena had found nothing but wonder and confusion; in her touch, nothing but tenderness and burgeoning, hesitant desire. When was the last time Xena had been touched so softly? When was the last time she’d felt such an innocent touch so deeply that her soul responded? She’d wrenched herself away, pausing only to soothe Gabrielle’s worry, returned the party, and not gone back to her rooms until daylight was just lightening the horizon and there was no chance of her doubling back to demand answers - or, as was more likely, take hold of her desire and transform it into something less hesitant. 

 

It was after all Caesar who was now unexpectedly her quarry, as she, apparently, was his. But this at least was familiar. Xena had spent years playing this game, had honed it to an art, had conquered enough of the world that Caesar had made her his bride - she, a Thracian, a Macedonian, a Greek, something of all of them and yet none of them entirely - and appropriately enough created a Roman of her. 

 

His eyes had sought her form immediately as she returned to the party ten minutes after she’d left it, and his posture relaxed enough that she, if not anyone else, noticed it. 

 

He knew something, that was certain. Whether it was the same thing Alti and Ares knew remained to be seen, but three people in the space of as many days with an adverse reaction to one woman - a playwright, at that - with whom they’d never interacted was too much for Xena’s gut to ignore. Whatever the connection between them all - herself, Caesar, Alti, Ares, Gabrielle, this still-contained business with ghosts and perhaps even the underworld if Ares were actually to be believed - at least Xena had a place to start. 

 

And as for Brutus - “Ah, Brutus,” Xena muttered. “Honorable Brutus.” But honor was unpredictable in unpredictable situations, she’d always found.

 

For all his blind devotion to Caesar, Brutus had never understood his decision to marry her or make her Empress, although he’d done a remarkable job of getting over it in the years since. Xena would venture far enough to speculate that Brutus even liked her on a good day. It was simply that there were parts of her that would never stop being a warlord; and she had been so very good at fulfilling that role precisely because she’d insisted on regularly getting her own hands dirty. 

 

And that was what Brutus didn’t understand. 

 

“What is an Empire but a conquered territory - if a rather large one?” Caesar had asked her after he’d revealed his plans to dissolve the Republic and proposed marriage to her in one fell swoop. 

 

“I guess that would make you chief warlord, then,” Xena had snarked back; because Caesar had always had a way of keeping her off-balance, too, and no one who held delusions of  _ destiny  _ that included wearing the sanitized white robes of high office would understand that the differences between the two of them were minimal.

 

But Caesar, to his credit, had only smiled. “Xena. I knew I could count on you to understand.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


The endless pilgrimage trains up the Aventine to Ceres’ temple overlooking the Circus were thicker today, as they often were on ludi days, but the smarter plebeians who couldn’t afford the going price of a seat in the wooden stands as hawked by scalpers on the street, would be heading up the Palatine to avoid the devotional masses surrounding the feriae. The vista from either hill offered a decent enough view of the proceedings - decent enough for the onlookers jostling each other to say that they’d been there, even if they couldn’t recount the blow-by-blow of the gladiatorial games - but it wasn’t likely they’d have to contend with more than a few particularly pious old grandmothers making offerings to Cybele or Apollo in their respective temples on the Palatine. 

 

“A decent enough crowd,” Caesar observed as he descended from the chariot, gallantly extending a hand backwards to assist Xena’s descent.

 

“Considering it’s the fifth day of the feria and the third day of ludi without a particularly scintillating match lined up, I’d say so,” Xena agreed. 

 

Caesar scoffed, still with a smile on his face - a feat indeed. “Come now, Xena; whatever’s causing your moods, you can set them aside for a few hours. Or at least until we reach the pulvinar.” 

 

As Xena supposed that was fair enough, she adopted her own smile.

 

The underbelly of the stands was dark and rank with piss, vomit, and rotting wood, but the journey to the entrance to the pulvinar was a short one. And there, waiting for them along with Caesar’s newly-created aediles cereales and their wives, stood Brutus and Gabrielle. 

 

She was looking calm enough, Xena was glad to see, as though nothing had passed between them last night other than several feet of distance. She smiled at Xena when the group bowed to her and Caesar, friendly but not overly familiar; and Xena smiled in return, inordinately pleased. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting - perhaps a more outward display of nerves? - but of course, Gabrielle had already proven that she had more spine and sense than that. 

 

Xena had wished a few times over the past day that she hadn’t been charmed enough by Gabrielle’s smile and the beautiful day to have extended the spur of the moment invitation in the first place, but if nothing else, she was looking forward to her husband’s reaction. 

 

He didn’t disappoint.

 

“Xena, you didn’t tell me that you had invited a guest,” Caesar said under his breath, all smooth charm and easy smile as he nodded to their guests in greeting.

 

“I wasn’t aware that I had to run my guest lists past you these days,” she replied in kind, genuinely surprised. Already showing his hand; he was spooked by something, that much was sure, and she’d bet that something’s name was Gabrielle. 

 

“Of course not,” he refuted. “Don’t tell me you’re trying to play matchmaker between those two. I won’t believe you.” 

 

“Alright,” she agreed, such a ridiculous idea never having occurred to her. “I won’t. Shall we?” 

 

The roar of the crowd greeted them as they stepped into bright daylight and graciously acknowledged their public; and as they seated themselves, their guests were led in behind them and similarly seated. Brutus, ever Caesar’s right hand, took his customary seat to Caesar’s right, with Gabrielle as his escort taking the seat to his right. 

 

It took a matter of moments for Caesar to open the games and the procession to begin around the arena; and as they took their own seats, Xena studied him and the way he was refusing to look to his right. 

 

She leaned in close to him. “You don’t like her,” she said as if it were a fact she’d just observed. 

 

He scoffed - a dead giveaway. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he chided. 

 

“Do you want me to ask her to leave?” 

 

“Would you like that?” he asked, searching her expression. “Don’t tell me you’ve staged exactly this scenario.”

 

“Hardly. For what reason?” 

 

“I don’t know, Xena,” Caesar said, and returned his attention back to the still-empty arena before him. “I’ve never pretended to know what you’re up to even half the time.”

 

“Now  _ that’s  _ a bold-faced lie,” she muttered with the intention that he would hear it. 

 

It earned her a smile. “Perhaps,” he acceded magnanimously. “Still, let the playwright stay. Let’s see how she likes the blood and gore of Roman games. I’ll be surprised if she has the stomach for it.”

 

Truthfully, the same thing had occurred to Xena. Greece wasn’t exactly known for the carnage of these sort of games. It had taken Xena herself awhile to become accustomed to it, and she’d regularly participated in all the gore and violence that came with battle, even thrived on it. Greece wasn’t exactly known for its peace, either, but from what she’d pieced together of the playwright’s background, she might have managed to escape that kind of conflict - ironically, perhaps, because of Xena’s acceptance of her hometown’s surrender. 

 

How far away all that seemed the more she thought about it. Perhaps it was simply that she had been thinking about it after years of focusing on the here-and-now of her Roman identity and what it meant for her. 

 

“Brutus tells me you’ve requested reports on these fits of ridiculousness that seem to be breaking out over the city,” Caesar said, breaking into her thoughts.

 

“Ah, Brutus,” Xena said and maintained her smile as Brutus, hearing his name, looked over at them and then quickly away upon realizing he wasn’t a welcome party to the conversation. “Yes, I did. Somebody needed to.” 

 

“What are you implying?” Caesar asked. “Surely you don’t buy into all this.” 

 

“Whether I buy into it is irrelevant. You’d think a man who had accomplished what you have largely through people would understand that.” 

 

“Certainly,” he agreed. “I just find it surprising that you’re buying into ghost stories when I’ve never known you to be superstitious. Did you get spooked by putting a sword through Alti’s heart, after all?” 

 

Xena rolled her eyes at his mocking tone. “Surely  _ you  _ have considered that everything that’s followed is a prime distraction for anybody who currently has anything up their sleeve.” 

 

“This is Rome. Everyone has something up their sleeve.” 

 

“All the more reason to expect a threat around every corner,” Xena pointed out, and paused. “Have you actually managed to acquire the fatal flaw of trust, or have you just gotten too comfortable where you’re sitting?” 

 

“Maybe I just haven’t gotten as paranoid as you seem to be becoming.” 

 

Xena scoffed. “As if I could outdo you when it comes to paranoia. There’s a reason you’re sitting at the top.” 

 

“Yet you caution me that I shouldn’t be too comfortable,” he said. “Is there something I should know, my dear wife?” 

 

Xena didn’t deign to answer. Even if she hadn’t had a tip from Ares himself after all these years that something more than the obvious was amiss, she would have been a fool not to get to the root of social disorder and put an end to it. And Caesar was  many things - but he was no fool. 

 

“Alti did say it was only the beginning,” she said. “And we both know how very real and powerful her capabilities were. Be shocked if you must, but let me deal with whatever mess this is in peace if you won’t take a possible conspiracy against the life of your wife seriously.”

 

“Xena, come now.” 

 

But Xena dodged him and turned around to engage their guests instead. “We’re delighted to have you with us today. All the appropriate introductions have been made, I assume?” 

 

“The  _ scriptor _ needed no introduction, though she now knows us,” one of the aediles said with a genial smile. 

 

“And I am happy that I do,” Gabrielle confirmed. “Lucius Pullus was telling me about his role with regards the city before we came in. I think it’s incredible that there are political posts dedicated to ensuring that all people receive their share of grain.” 

 

“Do you?” Caesar commented, unexpectedly enough that most eyes in the pulvinar swiveled to where he sat, still overlooking the opening procession. “I’m glad to hear it. I would have thought that such concerns were too ordinary for an artist who writes so much of love.” 

 

Gabrielle seemed surprised, but replied, “Love is grateful for a full stomach. Certainly hunger and starvation has torn love apart before.” 

 

“Not the kind of love you write about,” Caesar countered, finally turning to look at her.

 

“I’m not the first author to write about love as we can only aspire to, or hope for it,” Gabrielle said. “Nor do I think I’ll be the last.” 

 

Xena looked between the two of them and thought it was safe to say that her earlier assertion that Caesar didn’t like Gabrielle was true - and that the reverse was also true, if one knew enough about Gabrielle to read the firmness behind her soft, genial expression. None of the other guests in attendance were any the wiser, save perhaps Brutus, for which Xena was glad.

 

“Hmm,” Caesar finally acceded. “Well, you have no shortage of fans of your ideas and their expression already, if the Empress hasn’t already told you so.”

 

It wasn’t quite a compliment, but nevertheless Gabrielle bowed her head. “Thank you, Emperor. You’re very kind to say so.”

 

“Come now, it’s your success,” Xena said, amused by her rigid deference and feeling that it was past time for her to break in. “I’d advise you to own it.”

 

“And I’d advise you to obey an imperial command,” added Lucius Pullus, raising his glass to Xena in a silent toast, which caused her lips to quirk up in a grin. 

 

“If it’s an imperial command, then very well,” Gabrielle said. “I’m certainly not foolish enough to challenge such a thing.”

 

“See, she learns,” said Xena to their assembled group and earning polite chuckles. “And since you are, here’s another for you: stop crowding yourself into that corner. There’s plenty of room and ample conversation to be had with us over here. Brutus can surely let you go.”  

 

It seemed that Gabrielle did indeed know better than to refuse - as did Brutus, who managed to restrain himself from looking very put upon, and stood as Gabrielle picked her way across the pulvinar with a smile for each of the aediles and their wives as she passed them. 

 

“Is this also part of the tour?” Gabrielle asked Xena as she settled herself gratefully into the vacant chair at Xena’s side. 

 

Xena laughed. “Why not?” she said easily. “I did promise, didn’t I? Your Latin has held up well, it seems.”

 

“Ugh,” Gabrielle groaned. “From what little you’ve heard. My mind is exhausted.”

 

“Practice more,” was all Xena offered, still in Latin, and suppressed a smile as Gabrielle visibly restrained herself from letting loose some sarcastic comment, probably regarding the practical use of Latin in her usual daily Greek life. “Are you also exhausted of socializing? I saw that Horace took you on a spin last night.”

 

“I’ll go where you lead,” Gabrielle replied, just this side of cheeky. 

 

“Quite an assertion, if a deflection,” Xena said, amused; and Gabrielle, caught, smiled guiltily. “Shall we give you time to recover?” She had already reached for wine held on a tray by a waiting slave, handing one to Gabrielle. “You certainly have no shortage of admirers clamoring for your attention already.”

 

Again, the playwright seemed to bite back her instinctive response; and again, Xena read it in her eyes as her own rolled a little over-dramatically. 

 

“Drink your wine,” she commanded with an invented gruffness; and laughing, Gabrielle did. “I see you’ve becoming quite adept at adopting Roman disguises for your stay here. They become you.”

 

“Thank you. But I think I’ll leave the disguises for the stage,” Gabrielle said, patting at her once again precariously placed curls. Xena batted down an irrational disappointment that they didn’t hold the same token they had the previous evening as Gabrielle continued. “I keep expecting all this to fall down at any moment.”

 

“You perform as well?” Xena asked, interested.

 

“I’ve… been asked not to,” Gabrielle admitted, and Xena laughed. Gabrielle grinned sheepishly. “My talents lie behind the stage. I’ve mostly gotten over the indignation.”

 

“Well, I certainly enjoyed these last two plays, and they certainly aren’t my usual fare,” Xena admitted. “But I think you knew that.” 

 

That finally seemed enough for Gabrielle to blush and look down. Yet she also seemed to relax, which Xena was glad to see. “I’m glad it moved you.”

 

Xena chanced a look toward her husband - deep in conversation with Brutus - before making a decision. “What?” she pressed. “There’s something you’re not saying. Don’t be afraid of me now,” she said, half teasingly.

 

As she’d hoped she would, she got an incredulous look in response. Pleased, Xena grinned. “I’m just surprised to hear you describe this last one as a love story,” Gabrielle said in response to her actual question. “Not that that element isn’t there, just that there are other elements at the forefront.”

 

“Oh, sure. But none of which would have been brought to light except for the hero’s descent into the underworld to seek his lost love.” She spared Gabrielle another appraising glance. “Something else I can expect to see as a theme in your plays?”

 

“Not for the rest of my engagement here. But I suppose you do have a point. Similar accusations were levelled against me last night. Maybe I was overly enamored of Orpheus and Eurydice as a child.”

 

“Perhaps you should consider becoming an initiate in the mysteries,” Xena said offhandedly. A sudden and curious interest lit up Gabrielle’s eyes at her words, but she kept her question to herself. Xena made a note to figure out later if it were more to do with the question of whether Xena had ever been an initiate or with the possibility of Gabrielle becoming an initiate herself. 

 

In any case, it appeared that the games were nearly about to start: the procession around the ring was receding with all its pomp and fanfare back into the underbelly of the stands to give way to the first match. 

 

“Have you ever attended ludi before now?” Xena asked.

 

“No,” Gabrielle said. “Their popularity is still gaining ground in Athens, and I haven’t ever had a reason to go to one. Why do you ask?”

 

“Just wondering how much you knew to expect.” 

 

“Oh. Well, the basics, I suppose. Men fighting for sport. Sometimes a wild animal or two make it into the mix, as I understand.” 

 

“Hmm. Those are the basics,” Xena agreed, and didn’t say more.

 

Gabrielle noticed, of course. “You’re starting to make me nervous,” she said. “I’d heard it wasn’t meant to be a very interesting set of matches today.” 

 

That much was true, which might spare them all some of the usual brutality, though it was always a possibility that someone would die in the ring. She found herself hoping fervently that she wouldn’t be faced with Gabrielle’s upset and confusion - and perhaps worse, Caesar’s smugness. What could she possibly say to either? The truth? To Caesar,  _ I wanted her company?  _ To Gabrielle,  _ I thought you would enjoy being seen with imperial favor bestowed on you?  _ To both, _ I wasn’t thinking?  _ Impossible. 

 

“No, you’re right,” Xena said, and hoped that she was. She was relieved enough when two crowd favorites were announced to a storm of cheering - highly unlikely that either would be cheered to their deaths. 

 

The match proceeded unremarkably, as did the one following it, and the one following that. Xena relaxed some when she realized that Gabrielle was not repulsed, and in fact was curious enough to ask her about about the different kind of gladiators that appeared in the ring, which both aediles were happy to add their own comments to. 

 

“Which is your favorite manner of fighting?” Gabrielle asked Marcus Lepontus, who Xena knew to be particularly enthralled by the  _ thraeces -  _ not that anyone in Thrace actually fought as the gladiators were taught to. To his credit, without looking at Xena, he smoothly replied, “The  _ equites _ . A match on horseback is always a thrill.” 

 

“Spoken like a true cavalryman,” Xena said, to which he simply shrugged. To Gabrielle, she said, “I’m surprised that the particulars of the ludi interest you so much.” 

 

“People are always complaining that I need more fight scenes in my plays,” Gabrielle replied. “Maybe I will.” 

 

“Not gladiator fights, I hope.” 

 

“Why not? I would have thought the Empress of Rome, of all people, would have been pleased to see Roman ludi feature in Roman plays.” 

 

“Roman plays?” Xena challenged, eyebrows raised. 

 

“They’re written under the auspices of Rome. Does that not make them Roman?” Gabrielle challenged in turn. 

 

Xena only chuckled. “I would have thought you would believe you were doing yourself a disservice by comparing Greek theatre to Roman, but have it your way.” 

 

It caused Gabrielle to sputter entertainingly, and Xena chuckled again. 

 

The match progressed in much the same way as the others had until one of the gladiators seemed to get in a lucky blow. His opponent reeled away from the blow, but instead of regrouping for the oncoming attack, cowered with his hands over his head. The next blow came before the other gladiator had a chance to pull his blows if he’d wanted to, and sent him sprawling to the ground, blood flying from his mouth and a slice that cut from shoulder to arm. 

 

“Is he going to kill him?” Gabrielle asked quietly to her right.

 

“Possibly. Probably,” Xena amended herself, unable to lie. “Unless the crowd asks for him to be spared.” 

 

Gabrielle didn’t reply, and while Xena didn’t look, she strongly suspected that she’d found elsewhere to fix her eyes. Caesar didn’t look that much happier about it, but then, neither did the crowd, who it seemed hadn’t come to the ludi craving death today. There were a few shouts of “kill!” and “coward!” but overall the mood lacked the frenzied insanity that usually moved like a living thing among the throngs when a kill was about to be imminently demanded. 

 

Even the other gladiator seemed reluctant, his circling of his opponent seeming to come more from a place of procrastination than drawing out the performance. He leaned down close to his opponent’s face.

 

“What is he doing?” asked Lucius Pullus’ wife. “Taunting him?” 

 

It looked more like a conversation, if a one sided one. Xena caught Caesar’s eye easily enough and raised her eyebrows. His lips thinned and quirked on one side in response:  _ Let’s see how it plays out.  _

 

Typical enough of him.  _ Crowd pleaser,  _ she thought at him in return, and as if he could hear it he smiled, typically shit-eating. 

 

“Perhaps,” was all Xena allowed. 

 

In any case, the gladiator was already reeling back, his own mouth bloodied as his opponent staggered to his feet and shouted something.

 

“What was that he said?” 

 

Xena was nearly ready to strike the insipid woman. “I’m sure nothing of note. Look, the fight resumes.” 

 

No one disputed this statement, knowing better, but it became apparent that she was wrong very quickly as he screamed again, still staggering and dripping blood into the sand at his feet. The other gladiator had put a wide berth between the two of them, his gladius raised, but warily. 

 

The woman behind her didn’t venture to comment again, thankfully, but even Xena found herself leaning forward in curiosity, eyebrows knit. The gladiator began to laugh, spinning around wild and off balance as he did so before he shouted again - the same indistinguishable word. 

 

A hush had fallen over the stands as it seemed that everyone was leaning forward to hear along with Xena, equally in anticipation and curiosity. He shouted again - his opponent did not react - and then again. 

 

“Lentoris?” the woman behind her suggested as a question. 

 

No, Xena realized, just before he shouted it again.

 

“ _ Lemures!  _ Don’t you see that they’ve come? Fucking fools, it’s not only me they’ve come for.” 

 

“Surrounded the arena?” asked one of the aediles. “Whatever does that mean? What is he saying?” 

 

The crowd was murmuring again - not for or against, but with a distinct undercurrent of fear. Xena could see Caesar calculating quickly whether calling for the kill or calling for mercy would be the greater mistake - a toss up either way, but a decision that had to be made quickly. 

 

“Rome will fall!” 

 

Not quickly enough. With a grimace, Caesar gave the signal, and after a single heartbeat of further hesitation, the man was killed. 

 

The stands were eerily quiet in the aftermath. 

 

“Did he say - “ Lucius Pullus’ wife began.

 

Perhaps more shortly than was necessary, Xena said, “Enough.” The stands were beginning to whisper already, likely with more of the same questions. Action was needed. “Brutus?” 

 

To his credit, Brutus rose quickly and didn’t waste time with stupid questions. “Caesar,” he said with a bow, and Caesar dismissed him with a lazy flick of his fingers. “Honored guests, it’s time for our departure.” 

 

Next to Xena, Gabrielle was finally looking at the arena below at where the gladiator lay dead in the sand. Xena nudged her into motion and was glad at least to see more confusion than horror on her face. She stood without a word, only a backward glance to Xena which flickered lightning-quick to Caesar. 

 

“Come, Gabrielle,” Lucius Pullus said. “We should leave while we easily can. This crowd may turn. Emperor, Empress - you surely won’t be staying?” 

 

“The games must be formally ended,” Xena told him. “But we can fend for ourselves, I assure you.” 

 

“Of course.”

 

“But we thank you for honoring us with your presence.”

 

“It is we who are honored,” said the other aedile’s wife - the non-insipid one, Xena couldn’t remember her name. The others murmured their agreement and bowed, and then they departed. 

 

“Well, this is a fucking nightmare,” Caesar said conversationally as he stood. 

 

Xena scoffed. “Unfortunate. Inconvenient. An event certain to have consequences we won’t like. But not a nightmare, conqueror of the world.” 

 

“Hmm,” he replied, noncommittal, and then stepped again to the front of the pulvinar to address the crowd and end the game. 

 

Xena slouched in her seat.  _ Lemures,  _ he’d said: the angry dead. 

 

_ I wonder _ , she thought idly,  _ if I will see them yet.  _

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


The following days were the last few of Cerealia, and therefore of Gabrielle’s troupe’s stay in Rome. She had only two more plays to present - a comedy and a final tragedy, rounding out her entries in last year’s Dionysia - which meant that she had two evenings where she and her troupe were left to their own devices. 

 

This seemed to suit the majority of them just fine. Grateful for the free time, they scattered into Rome when they woke and didn’t come back until the early hours of the morning. 

 

“Be careful,” Gabrielle felt obliged to call after them. “Don’t drown in the Tiber.” 

 

Alexius adopted a hurt expression, clutching his hands to his chest. “Who, us? Be serious, boss, the Tiber isn’t exactly the river of choice for us to drown in even for drunkards. The smell alone will put us off the notion.” 

 

Gabrielle left them to their fun, knowing nobody wanted a boss or a mother getting in the way, however accepting and accommodating she knew they would have been of her presence. She’d had a few invitations to dinners after the second play’s afterparty at the imperial palace, and she took up Horace’s invitation gladly. 

 

She was relieved that Iaia was there when she realized that Virgil was too. She must have read the dismay on Gabrielle’s face at the way he lit up like a puppy when he saw her, because she laughed from across the room but immediately made her way over to Gabrielle’s side, kissing her warmly as Gabrielle was beginning to realize was simply her custom. 

 

“Anyone would think you were a blushing maiden,” Iaia teased her, but still took her arm familiarly. “How old are you, anyway?”

 

Dryly, Gabrielle replied, “I am no blushing maiden.”

 

But Iaia was looking at her indulgently. “Perhaps not in the usual ways. Come, you can count on me to be your protector.” 

 

“Oh? And what do you get out of it?” Gabrielle teased in return.

 

“Other than the wonderful company and the beautiful woman on my arm? Nothing,” Iaia replied. Gabrielle couldn’t help her smile, but neither could she help her blush; and Iaia laughed again. “Let me take you to our host and between us we’ll make the proper introductions.” 

 

The evening passed with a little more wine than Gabrielle was generally used to imbibing due to Horace’s diligent eye and generous hand when Gabrielle’s cup ran a little low. 

 

“I hear you were at the ludi yesterday,” he said by way of conversation. “An imperial guest, no less! You truly are making quite the splash in Rome. I’m surprised that you stooped to accept my humble dinner invitation.” 

 

Gabrielle rolled her eyes and batted away his hand, ready to refill her cup again. “I think you’re misguaging my popularity.” 

 

“Regardless,” he said smoothly, refilling her glass anyway. “We’re glad you’re here. Are we not, friends?” There was a cheer of agreement from around the rest of the table in the triclinium, no doubt bolstered by the wine, but Gabrielle let it warm her nonetheless.

 

“The ludi yesterday, you said?” Virgil broke in curiously. “I had heard there was some disturbance toward the end, something to do with more men sighting ghosts.” 

 

Gabrielle honestly didn’t want to talk about the ludi, but with eight other pairs of eyes on her she could sense changing the conversation wasn’t an option. “One of the gladiators,” she confirmed. “He appeared to suddenly go mad.” 

 

“What was the source of the madness?” another of the guests - a poet named Propertius - asked. “There has been much rumor going around, and here we have an eyewitness - who doesn’t seem likely to exaggerate for the sport of it,” he finished with a wink. 

 

This was news to Gabrielle, at least the presumed scope of the rumors, as she hadn’t ventured out into the city much in the last day and a half no matter Alexius’ urgings. Everything she’d seen so far had confirmed for her that this wasn’t a city she much cared for. 

 

_ Sure you’re not waiting for word from a certain someone?  _ questioned her inner voice, which irritatingly enough sounded very much like Alexius.

 

She brushed the thought away and instead demurred, “I don’t speak Latin very well, and no one confirmed it for me before I left.” 

 

“Come, your Latin seems perfectly fine tonight,” Propertius disagreed to nods around the table. “Virgil is right - hearsay is he was screaming about ghosts as if they’ve infected the arena, too.” 

 

“Shocking,” Horace chastised him, although he didn’t appear all that shocked or even all that perturbed. “Have some respect for the dead, friend.” 

 

Propertius waved him off, and Gabrielle regarded him curiously. “You don’t believe it?” she asked. 

 

He shrugged. “I think it’s easy for an idea to gain root in people’s minds and make them lose their reason.”

 

“Well, the man was killed for it,” she acknowledged. “Whatever was said or wasn’t said. Make of that what you will.” 

 

“It sounds as though Caesar may agree,” Propertius said, watching her curiously; but Gabrielle kept her silence, nowhere near enough of an idiot to break under scrutiny such as this even if she agreed.

 

“Rome is a very different place from Athens,” she said carefully. “I cannot begin to presume to understand the fears that drive people here, or how Caesar considers them.” 

 

“Not so very different. Iaia, do you disagree?” Propertius said. Next to Gabrielle, Iaia came to attention mid-sip of wine, raising her eyebrows in consideration. 

 

“In some ways, yes; in some ways, no,” she said when she had put down her wine. “We are all people. But for this, questions of the world that lies beyond this one and the particulars of what we believe, I think I agree with my friend.” 

 

“Is that an assertion that you believe the dead walk among us?” Propertius asked her.

 

But Iaia only smiled with a quick glance to Gabrielle. “I think what I believe matters very little. My ghosts, should they try to find me, would not do so here.” 

 

_ Nor mine,  _ Gabrielle thought. Truthfully, she suspected that she had heard correctly and that the rumors were true:  _ lemures _ , the man had cried out, and Gabrielle hadn’t been able stop thinking of it since. A gladiator - no wonder his ghosts lay in wait in the sands beneath his feet. And he had died in terror. No wonder every last citizen of this city was afraid. They should be. 

 

Brutus hadn’t answered her questions as he’d hustled her out of the Circus and back to the palace. “You have nothing to fear,” was all he’d said. 

 

“Are you saying that others do?” she’d challenged. “Tell me I heard incorrectly back there, that that man wasn’t put to death for saying what he saw.” 

 

“That  _ slave  _ was killed for stoking public mania and for speaking treason,” Brutus replied. “Even you can’t argue with that. Or,” he said, seeing that she was about to do just that, “as a foreigner and a guest of the Empire here at Caesar’s pleasure, you would do well not to.” 

 

Gabrielle had chuckled sardonically. “So you’re warning me again.” 

 

“It seems you need it,” he’d replied in seriousness. “Look, Gabrielle - surely someone such as you hasn’t committed crimes against the dead. Whatever you believe, you’re safe in Rome so long as you keep yourself that way.” 

 

Gabrielle hadn’t known what to make of that, and still didn’t. Romans were notoriously superstitious in their beliefs, and who knew - perhaps Caesar as the first of them all was exactly as superstitious as the rest of them, though it seemed improbable for a man who had amassed so much power in such a short space of time. Or, perhaps, that was the secret as to how he had. In another world, Gabrielle might care to speculate along with the rest of them, but here and now, she wanted to consider Caesar as little as possible. 

 

“I had heard a rumor that there was also insult made to Caesar,” Virgil began, redirecting the conversation. Internally, Gabrielle sighed.  

 

“You will forgive our guest if she doesn’t want to let insults against Caesar pass her lips, even in repetition,” Horace said before she could respond, but before Gabrielle had a chance to be grateful, he continued, “Especially given the source of her elevation in Rome.” 

 

“Yes, Gabrielle,” Iaia said, picking up the thread of his teasing. “To be Caesar’s guest at the ludi after three days in the city. Truly an accomplishment, isn’t it?” 

 

Gabrielle could see from her expression that she knew full well who’s guest Gabrielle had been, along with an element of chastisement for failing to mention any of this earlier. 

 

“Yes,” Gabrielle agreed, raising an eyebrow at her in challenge. “Truly.” 

 

She didn’t particularly care to speak of the Empress either, even aside from the inevitable teasing the subject would bring up among these, her friends. She hadn’t heard from her since the raving gladiator had been killed in the arena below her for the joint crimes of madness and speaking against Caesar and Brutus had hustled them out of the Circus ahead of the crowds. Not that Gabrielle had been expecting to - or so she told herself whenever she thought of her. Nor had she reappeared on her balcony in the night, undressed and unguarded enough to fool Gabrielle into believing that she was reachable, touchable. 

 

The Empress, after all, was the Empress. Gabrielle was simply a playwright. Whatever the Empress may have felt about her, however intense and sudden the connection between them, Gabrielle acknowledged that the realities of their lives never would have sustained it. What was it Iaia had said at the last party - that the Empress had broken half the hearts in Rome? Against reason and her own will, Gabrielle felt a stab of jealousy that perhaps even Iaia’s was among them, and that her words had been spoken with the voice of experience. 

 

Perhaps the Empress had a taste for Greek women. Perhaps it reminded her of home. Perhaps she simply liked the lack of complication that a lover so far away from Rome necessarily meant. 

 

Gabrielle was vaguely aware of the conversation continuing without her, but it wasn’t until Iaia leaned into her ear and whispered, “That’s a dark look you’re wearing,” that she realized the ridiculousness of the way her thoughts were spiralling. Iaia had never indicated that she was personally acquainted with the Empress, and even then, so what if she was? So what, even, if she had even been her lover? What could it possibly matter to Gabrielle, who had known her, the most powerful woman in the world, for four days and could just barely claim something like a friendship with her? 

 

She laughed at her own foolishness and let her expression ease. “I’m sorry. I’ll endeavor to do better.” 

 

“See that you do,” was Iaia’s reply, though it was said lightly and with a lingering concern that Gabrielle dispelled by shaking her head and clasping her arm reassuringly. 

 

The rest of the evening passed smoothly, though with still more wine, and it wasn’t until late in the night that they called an end to the party. Horace dispatched his slave to bring his carriage for the unaccompanied - Iaia and Gabrielle - while the others left in their own or engaged chariots to take them to their homes or hospitia. 

 

“What? The Empress hasn’t provided a carriage for your use?” Horace exclaimed when only the three of them remained in the house, lingering in the vestibulum. 

 

“I would give it another week if she were staying that long,” Iaia said. “Though I’m sure if she wanted to extend her stay, she’d have only to say the word.” 

 

Gabrielle laughed since it was expected of her, but only said, “I’m not used to city life anymore. I’m looking forward to spending the summer writing overlooking the ocean and my vineyard. I invite you both to join me if you ever have the urge to travel.” 

 

“An invitation I’m sure we’ll both take you up on, gladly,” Horace said, kissing her cheeks and lips in farewell. “Until then, you have one more night where you’re not required to be in the imperial theater?” At Gabrielle’s nod, he said, “You’re more than welcome to join me here again. Say the word and I’ll arrange a party; tell me who you want yet to meet, and I’ll move the earth to bring them here.” 

 

“Now, here’s a man with confidence, unafraid to tempt the gods,” Iaia chastised. “Don’t exhaust her.” 

 

“I specified the earth, not the heavens or the underworld,” Horace objected. “They can have no objection. And let her decide for herself if she’s exhausted.” To Gabrielle, he said, “You aren’t, are you?” 

 

This time Gabrielle laughed and meant it. “Thank you. Let me sleep for tonight and I’ll send my answer to you tomorrow. I’m very grateful to be your guest, regardless.” 

 

“See what you’ve done, putting the idea in her head?” Horace told Iaia, but as the carriage was ready and waiting for them, he kissed her in farewell too. “You are also welcome.” 

 

“Always the afterthought,” she said, with it was without rancor. “Good night, Horace.” 

 

She was also an imperial guest, Iaia’s destination was the same as Gabrielle’s, which made things all the simpler. For the first time, Gabrielle reconsidered her status as guest of the Empire, same as Gabrielle, for the feria, and she asked without thinking, “Have you been a guest here before?” 

 

Iaia seemed unsurprised by the question. Gabrielle wondered if she were transparent enough that Iaia had perhaps even been waiting for it. “I’ve been a guest of several people in Rome before,” she answered. “But if you mean a guest of Caesar, specifically, yes, I’ve been commissioned to provide artwork for two feria before now, one of them Cerealia, actually. I should really take you out so you get the full experience before you leave.” 

 

“You must be well connected with the imperial family, then.” 

 

Iaia smiled slightly. “Not terribly. I’ve had the honor of meeting both Caesar and the Empress on each of my visits. The Empress was kind enough to speak Attic with me rather than forcing me to fumble through on Latin.” 

 

Gabrielle couldn’t tell if Iaia were concealing anything, and her continued suspicions mingled with disappointment that the Empress was apparently considerate enough to switch languages with others as well. “Oh,” she managed. 

 

“I am surprised that you attended the ludi,” Iaia said. “I hope you don’t mind me saying now that we’re away from the rest of them. You don’t seem like someone who enjoys watching men fight and gore and kill each other for sport.” 

 

“I’m not,” Gabrielle said. “One doesn’t say no to an imperial invitation. And I knew enough to know what I was getting into. I’m not stupid.” 

 

“I didn’t say you were,” Iaia said, laying one hand on Gabrielle’s forearm with a look of concern. “I wasn’t trying to tease you - not just now. I apologize.” 

 

Irritated only with herself, Gabrielle shook her head and smiled as sincerely as she could. “I wasn’t offended. I’m sorry, I think the wine…” 

 

Iaia nodded understandingly, but the concern in her face didn’t fade away entirely. The last of the wine from dinner was indeed beginning to hit Gabrielle, and while she hadn’t lied to Iaia, the deeper truth that she’d agreed to attend because she’d wanted to please the Empress swirled maddeningly in her mind along with the possibilities of just how intimately Iaia knew the Empress, simultaneously more detailed yet fuzzier around the edges. Had they kissed? Had Iaia’s hands known that glorious dark infinity of hair? Had her lips known the Empress’? Had her body known the weight and breadth of that powerful body against hers? 

 

She wished she’d never gone to the ludi. She wished she’d never come here. 

 

“You look unwell.”

 

Gabrielle startled. Iaia, hand outstretched, was looking at her hesitantly. Gabrielle made a concerted effort to control her features, belatedly aware she was regarding the colorful paintings that lined the carriage’s interior faintly murderously.

 

“I’m fine,” she managed. It was as much truth she could muster for as ridiculous as she’d ever felt. She had no claim on the Empress. She hadn’t even  _ heard  _ from the Empress in two days. She was going back to Greece in three days regardless. 

 

It didn’t seem enough to fully convince the still-suspicious Iaia, but it didn’t matter: the carriage was nearly at the palace entrance. A guard escorted them to the part of the palace that was used to house guests and stopped before Iaia’s rooms.

 

“I can find the rest of the way myself,” Gabrielle assured him, waving him off. It took a moment for him to decide to heed her suggestion, and grumpily she asked, “Do I look drunker than I feel?” 

 

Iaia chuckled as Gabrielle swayed slightly on the spot. “I don’t know. How drunk do you feel?” 

 

Later, Gabrielle couldn’t say what had overcome her, other than that she was still feeling lightheaded and bold. All she knew that was Iaia’s lips seemed very near and that as she had already kissed Gabrielle several times before, there seemed no harm in Gabrielle leaning up to do the same.

 

Drunk or not, she was too startled by herself to move, too surprised by the confirmation of softness she’d had only a hint of before. Iaia too seemed startled, but she didn’t pull away, and tentatively Gabrielle pressed their lips together with more intention that was ever behind the usual kisses of greeting and farewell that were so common here, enough so that she could taste the hint of more wine, enough that she felt drunker still. 

 

It seemed to be enough for Iaia to finally respond, to draw Gabrielle closer and hum into her mouth. Gabrielle felt drunker than she had before, increasingly consumed with impressions of warmth and softness until suddenly, with one final, friendly kiss, she was left bereft and blinking. 

 

Iaia didn’t appear to be offended when Gabrielle focused on her face, though there was something behind her expression that Gabrielle couldn’t quite parse. Her thumb was still gently caressing Gabrielle’s cheek; and though Gabrielle was feeling suddenly confused and like she needed to apologize, it was enough to assure her that not everything was lost.

 

“Come to me when you’re not under the influence of wine,” Iaia told her. “Until you do, it will be as if this never happened, alright?” 

 

“Alright,” Gabrielle said dumbly, unable to read her. “Iaia, I’m sorry - “

 

“No, no,” Iaia interrupted her. “You’ve done nothing wrong. I just fear that you’re not acting as you mean to, right now.” 

 

_ You’ve done nothing wrong.  _ Why were those words so familiar? Blue eyes - moonlight - a kiss pressed to her knuckles - Gabrielle touched a hand to her head in mortification at the realization. Who was she anymore that two separate women over the course of five days had felt the need to reassure her with those words? And what was worse - once could be described as a fluke. Twice was a pattern. 

 

“Let me take you back to your rooms, hmm?” Iaia was saying. Gabrielle was still too embarrassed to lift her head and meet her eyes. “Come, I insist, it’s either me or the guard.” 

 

Gabrielle might have opted for the guard if she were given a chance, but Iaia didn’t give her that chance. She was back before her own door in a matter of minutes. With any luck, none of her troupe were about to gossip about it to her - or without her - in the morning.

 

“Even if you do choose not to say anything after this, let’s not be awkward with each other,” was Iaia’s parting entreaty. “Come find me either way tomorrow, alright?” 

 

“I will. I’m sorry,” Gabrielle said again, unable to help herself. 

 

“Stop,” Iaia told her with a firm hand to her shoulder tempered by another kind smile. It still made Gabrielle’s heart sink. “Goodnight, my friend. Get some sleep. I suspect you’ll need it.” 

 

Gabrielle gravitated toward her balcony more out of habit than hope once she’d entered her rooms. It was as good a place to be as any: the wind gave at least the illusion of gently taking away her drunkenness and stupidity away, and the stone of the railing was cool against her forehead when she leaned on it heavily and groaned. At least she didn’t feel like she was going to throw up. She’d hoped to have left that extremely short-lived era of her life behind several years ago. She’d never made a good drunk, only an impulsive one.

 

If only Homer and Euripides could see her now, she mused. If only they were here with her. Spitefully, she wondered if Euripides would be wildly jealous at her success here, such as it was. Maybe Euripides’ secret journey to Macedonia would reap more fruit after all, and foolish little Gabrielle from foolish little Poteidaia would return to her vineyard by the sea as if nothing had happened at all. Maybe that would be preferable.

 

Gabrielle lifted her head, and could just make out movement in the courtyard below. A human figure, she discerned - no, a woman, covered head to toe in a stola and palla. 

 

But Gabrielle had seen this particular stola and palla before, she was certain; and before she could think better of it, softly called, “Xena.” 

 

Her voice wasn’t loud enough to ring through the atrium, and even to Gabrielle’s clouded mind, she thought it was too quiet to have even reached the woman’s ears. Sure enough, the figure didn’t react, not a hitch in her step as she made her way back into the shadows on the opposite end. 

 

Just as well. Gabrielle snorted at herself, though she only felt inexplicably and unbearably empty. Well, soon enough she would leave Rome, and with her leaving stop seeing the Empress of the known world in every woman, shadow, and corner. And perhaps then this sense of loss that it seemed now that she had always carried with her without even knowing would disappear with her as well. 

 

* * *

  
  


Xena nearly paused in the courtyard but for a lifetime of training her responses. She didn’t need to look up to know whose voice it had been.

 

It hadn’t been right of her to ignore Gabrielle for these last two days, she knew, especially after the commotion at the Circus, and she wouldn’t have had there been another option. Caesar was watching her more closely, for all she was watching him in return, and it was all she could do to orchestrate reasons for ordering her own men to check the temples in Rome for signs of unrest with instructions for word of anything out of the ordinary to be reported back to her. 

 

It had yielded thus far the same kind of reports that Brutus brought to her daily - men, women, and children sacrificing to their patron gods ever more fervently in hope of protection, some traumatized enough by visions of the dead that they had sought asylum within temple walls. Questioning the descriptions of these claimants hadn’t brought any descriptions of a trio of women old, middle aged, and child. 

 

Frustrated, Xena had snuck away this evening to the only temple to the Fates that she knew of, which lay outside the city walls some distance down the Via Appia, situated quietly, unassumingly, along a long stretch of fields. 

 

There had been no sign of them when she entered, though Xena didn’t know why she might have expected it to be so easy. She’d lit the dormant candles, spoken her prayers in Attic and Macedonian and Latin, and when nothing happened, observed a column with signs of wear. Chains? she wondered. The marks might be hundred of years old already - this wasn’t a new temple. 

 

But toward the back of the temple something glowed on the ground: a single thread. Xena picked it up and was immediately overwhelmed by an onslaught of memory - blood, death, rage,  _ lust -  _

 

\- she was throwing the chakram, she was beheading a woman, she was leading an army into battle on nothing more than her own charging horse and screaming voice; a man was on top of her, a woman was inside of her;  _ more, more, more  _ cried her blood - 

 

\- on her face it stung in the open wind, on her hands it caked between her fingers and her sword - 

 

\- she cried out in pleasure - 

 

\- Gabrielle smiled at her -

 

The shock of it was finally enough to make her fling the thing away from her. She ached for a sword, a battle, sex, all of the three or just one of them as immediately as possible, as the residual effects swarmed through her veins like a great unstoppable thundering. 

 

Xena was breathless and shaking by the time she got herself back under control. How much time had passed she didn’t know, but it was still dark outside with no hint of dawn on the horizon. 

 

Was this what Ares had meant when he talked about another life, another world? How much of it was real? How much of it was still inside her, inseparable from her, waiting to be unleashed? What had Alti known of it - and what, if anything, did Caesar? 

 

_ I’ve got a hunch you’re involved,  _ Ares had said. But to what level, and why?  _ Maybe the Empress of Rome isn’t the right person for the job,  _ his voice whispered, and her eyes narrowed. 

As she carefully picked up what could only be the thread of her own fate, this time in the cloth of her palla, her mouth was set in a grim determination. Whoever that had been - whatever life Ares wanted her to restore the world to - Xena would not be pulled into becoming that woman. 

 

But yet Xena was still feeling the aftereffects an hour later when she snuck back into the palace, pressing a few denarii into the hands of one of her more loyal guards as she did. It was impossible to stop the way her blood jumped at the sound of Gabrielle’s voice. Unbidden, a half dozen images jumped into her mind of just what she could do with a drunk, beautiful, willing woman, and she pushed them all away. 

 

But when she’d hidden away the faintly glowing thread in her own rooms and started to pace restlessly, her thoughts strayed again. Through the door to her balcony and across the atrium, she could still see Gabrielle slumped indecorously against the balcony railing. The sight was enough to take the slightest edge off of Xena’s mood, and she smiled exasperatedly, if a touch more fondly than she should have. Poor thing. Xena shouldn’t encourage her. 

 

One of her slaves appeared when she called outside her rooms a few minutes later, and she pressed a note into her hands. 

 

“Check on the visiting playwright and make sure she’s not ill,” Xena instructed her. 

 

The slave didn’t ask questions, and took the note and bowed. “At once, domina.” 

 

Xena hesitated for a moment after she’d left, her blood still high and her body still thrumming, foreign and familiar, addictive, insidious. She considered, and then acted. 

 

Caesar was asleep when Xena pushed silently through the door, but he woke up when she climbed on top of him. 

 

“Xena!” he gasped, but his eyes were already dark. 

 

She slammed a hand against his windpipe until it yielded to the pressure of the web of thumb and forefinger. “Don’t - speak,” she whispered as warning, and choked him harder for good measure. 

 

His acquiescence was in his eyes and the way his body was already responding to her, and she accepted it without further thought. It wasn’t really what she wanted, she knew ( _ more, more, more,  _ sang her blood), but it would be enough for now to move and to take and to push some other world’s Gabrielle and her gentle smiles far, far away until she could handle them once again.  
  


 

* * *

  
  


Gabrielle looked across the atrium to the curtained entrance to the Empress’ balcony, note in hand and heart suddenly pounding away the remaining effects of the evening’s wine.

 

 _Get some sleep,_ was all it said.

 

It wasn’t confirmation of anything, least of all the identity of the hand that had written it. But all the same, Gabrielle was sure those curtains had been open just minutes ago. 

 

Behind her, the Empress’ slave waited, and Gabrielle sighed. “I’m fine,” she told her. “I think I’ll get some sleep.” 

**Author's Note:**

> SO, I have been tinkering away aimlessly at this for long enough to know it's never going to actually write itself unless I throw it out here and create Expectations for myself. 
> 
> If you're curious re: the jumping off point, it's simply that Gabrielle never manages to summon _quite_ enough bravery to come back out onto the balcony barely dressed and obviously looking for Xena... which means that Caesar never sees her, and therefore never correctly parses her intentions in doing so. Which in turn means that the rest of the dominoes are delayed in falling. 
> 
> But fall they eventually shall. This is, after all, a story about fate.


End file.
